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"The Buddha is not found only in temples." A light turns on in the monastery dormitory to kick off the overture, the long track in the pale flatland announces a work of lines and circles. The callow novice (Ahn Sung-ki) vouches for the excommunicated monk (Jeon Moo-song) at an isolated security checkpoint, the search for spiritual sublimity loves company, "we are all on your paths, aren't we?" The younger man often finds himself rigid with anguish, college squeeze (Michelle Okkyung Lee) and estranged mother figure tellingly in his ascetic withdrawal. His assumed purity contrasts with the seasoned sensualist, whose embrace of earthly appetites leads the flirtatious runaway (Bang Eun-hee) to Seoul's red-light district. ("The sequel is more melodramatic," he assures of their story together.) Destinies cross and diverge and cross again, the rhythm is a stately swell keyed by Im Kwon-taek to the physical reality of landscapes. The terrain is verdant or snowy, pebbly under the thawing ice or blanched and lashed by waves, perpetually dwarfing and reflecting human concerns. (Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala is a crucial model, so is King's I'd Climb the Highest Mountain.) Plain structures and complex textures, traipsing travelers on static panoramas and a moving camera among still meditators. "To overcome the fetters of the mind, you should devour them." Parable of the bird in the bottle, mortification of the finger over the candle. "A ghost thirsty for a drink" is how the worldly former priest summarizes himself, he rejects the Buddha's traditional serene smile when carving a statue and is last seen as a frozen body in a burning pagoda. Tentative parental reconciliation is the dream for a land divided, the open road remains ahead. "Attaining enlightenment is easy. Putting it into practice is hard." Reichardt's Old Joy finds a surprising parallel in the Oregon woods.
--- Fernando F. Croce |