I just watched the Korean (?) movie, “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring”
It’s about a Buddhist Monk and the boy he raises in a pagoda on an isolated pond. It’s a phenomonal movie but I had one question about the movie that stumped me. I’m wondering if my confusion is due to the translation issues between English and Asiatic languages.
[spoiler In the two suicide scenes, the first with the boy, now 30, and the second with the Master near the end in the boat they placed pieces of rice paper with something written on the paper, over their eyes, nose, and mouth. The subtitle simply said "Shut." What is the sigificance of this? Is "shut" an accurate translation and what does this mean in relation to what they were doing?/spoiler]
I really loved the minimal dialogue in the film. The actions tell the story. American films really grind my arse with all the unneccesary dialogue.
Um, ok, since my spoiler box didn’t work, what I had said in it was cut off.
So, here come spoilers sans box…
What was the signigicance of the word “Shut” I didn’t get it. Is that a correct translation of what was written on the paper? What was the symbolism here?
I just watched this film Monday night, and had a discussion about it in my Asian film class today, so I might be able to help. Take this with a grain of salt; it mostly came from group discussion - not from experts, by any means.
I don’t know Chinese, but I know a little bit of Japanese, and that translation of shut is close enough to the real meaning. It’s also a part of “to close/closed” etc, so think of “shut” as in to shut a door, the door blocking out everything else.
I saw it as he was shutting his senses/being to the outer world, stopping the inflow of constant awareness and achieving emptiness on his way to enlightenment. You can’t be truly “empty” in the Buddhist sense if you’re letting the outside world constantly invade your mind and body.
I found this interesting, but someone said that when the original Master wears the paper and burns himself on the boat, it’s not an actual suicide in the sense of “I’m going to prematurely end my life, woe is me.” so much as “Since I’m so attuned, I know I am going to die at this moment, and will kill myself in a manner befitting my enlightenment.” Apparently, dying in a sitting position is a sign of higher levels of enlightenment.
I don’t think we can be sure of his enlightenment though. It was implied he was reincarnated as a snake, which would mean he hadn’t been truly enlightened at all, so…
Anyway, I really enjoyed this movie; it was absolutely beautiful. If you liked the film, a much more subtle (read: maybe boring to some) yet very similar film is called “Why has the Bodhi Dharma Left for the East?”
It was a Korean film, but he was a Buddhist monk, and I’m positive the character was written in Chinese. The Heart Sutra that was carved on the floor of the temple/boat was also in Chinese. I guess it’s easier for them to study the original Chinese than translate it into Korean, I don’t really know.
Now that you mention it, I agree that it’s not Korean. I wasn’t really thinking about it while watching the film but Korean is easily recognizable by its abundant use of circles. I don’t remember seeing any in this.
I agree, the characters definitely looked Chinese.
Regarding the Master being reincarnated. My friends and I were debating whether or not his reincarnation as the snake signified that he in some way failed as a master to the student (or at least felt he had) since the student ended up in prison, or he had exhausted all he could do in this life and all he could do for his student, thus the ending of his cycle on Earth. OR had he chosen to return as some sort of Bhodisatva to the student because he knew the student was almost ready but not quite when he returned from prison to the pagoda. I definitely am still processing the symbolism in the film
I studied Buddhism in my early 20’s but my knowledge of the symbolism is getting creaky.
The character is Chinese. Korean, like Japanese, use Chinese characters as a sort of shorthand/symbolic thing. You’ll often see the days of the week and the month written in Chinese characters in Korean newspapers. Every Korean kid is taught basic Chinese characters. However, the pronunciation is not the same. It’s basically a way to compress a lot of meaning into a relatively short character.
To distinguish Korean from Chinese, it’s usually much simpler looking. To get Korean from Japanese, Korean has separate characters on the bottom, Japanese will all be in one line.
Eh, I have about zero knowledge regarding Buddhism, but I seem to remember reading/hearing that the old monk’s death was not a suicide from disgrace. I think that the important part was (I’m not sure if I remember this correctly, I watched it a while ago) that after he burned, all that was left were some rock like things. Is this right? I honestly can’t remember. Anyway, there was something significant about that. I think it was that when you are truly holy, when you burn you burn completely except for a single rock that is left. I might be talking completely out of my nether regions.
That’s correct, audiobottle. The story goes, when an especially holy or enlightened person dies, there is a pearl that forms inside their body. The more enlightened the corpse, the bigger the pearl. My (Korean, non-Buddhist) husband swears up and down that this is absolutely a fact. :dubious:
