Films made in foreign, especially exotic, landscapes always fascinate us. This craze for foreign is not a unique phenomenon in the appreciation of art, but something inherent in the psychological make-up of almost all communities. Critics have pointed out an eastward shift in this fascination. Food, perfume and women in the Orient fascinate us. So do its culture and lifestyle. To the list, we need only to add cinema.
But is the argument conclusive? Is being Orient the only factor which motivates us to watch such films? Then what about Spielberg and Bergman. Although critics of Orientalism ( see for details http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism) substantiate their claims with archival sources, their arguments are somewhat generalized. They belittle the ability of an artist to pick up parochial experiences and to universalize them. It is this universality of experiences and feelings artistically recreated that determines the success or otherwise of a film.
Kim Ki Duk, who is making an epoch in the South Korean cinema, takes a dig at the critics of orientalism in 3-cage Iron ( see for summary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-Iron) a film as eccentric as its director. Kim says that a genuine artist will be able to understand the full gamut of popular psychosis. If this psychosis is common the world over, why need oriental fantasy alone determine the artist’s success? Through the craft an artist uses, he or she can identify with a common artistic experience.
Watching Kim is part of this identification. Like a chemist he knows all the equations of film making. But like a real scientist, equations already set don’t endear him. He is searching for newer and newer combinations to invent an entirely different aesthetics.
Take for instance his masterpiece, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter……..Spring ( see for summary-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring,_Summer,_Autumn,_Winter..._and_Spring ). The audience watching the movie will be transposed to a landscape, which is a reality and a fantastic dream all the same. Whatever one has read of Zen Buddhism is there in vivid details. The world of sublime spirituality marked by visuals and color is set in the backdrop of silence and unadulterated music of nature.
The film does not have a complex storyline. Story lines, more often than not, do damage to the effect that a film has on us. We will have to pitch characters and events against one another, which should directly lead to a climax and then to a catastrophe. But in Spring Summer it is not the forced difference that set tunes to the visual background and interactions of characters, but a symphony.
The symphony has been retained from the beginning to the end of the film. Even when the old monk finds his disciple sleeping with the girl, he thinks it’s quite natural for the two to have sex. Because what they did is part of a landscape which knows no differences. The film is all about growth. The growth of nature and perceptions. Finally the film becomes a statement of the growth of personality in harmony with the seasonal change.
If a film is made based merely on its entertainment value, the director needs to have value judgment on the events and characters at times. He or she should always change the way a story is told or the characters behave. But Kim does not make a value judgment of the kind. He rather observes and invites us to observe the way the film progresses. It is much the same way as Sun-hwa observes Tae-suk intruding to her house in 3-iron. She learns, one by one, how he cooks food, has a bath, house keeps, and finally masturbates staring at her naked photographs. Cinema is a medium of learning a culture, silently observing and internalizing its nuances.
So, what’s the pattern of South Koran culture we can learn from Kim’s movies? There are Buddhist spirituality and its simple philosophy of life, gardening and tea-making, Koran hospitality and martial arts and independent sexuality or sexual liberation( even school girls have no qualms to sell their bodies to find money for a trip) and political assertion much in protest against the hegemonic overreach of the world police. We find all these cultural symbols brilliantly encoded in the film.
Kim’s films are three in number. The classification is not arbitrary but the one done by Kim himself through the non-thematic sub-titles in the 3-iron. First there are close-up films which delineate the intrinsic aspect of human mind as they are best understood from the face. Secondly there are mid-shot films, in which the characters interact in the social context. Thirdly there are long-shot films in which the characters are part of the landscape.
It is through the long shot films that Kim as an artist declares independence. For, in such films social inhibitions and censoring don’t dictate terms to the life of the characters. When man is forced to abandon landscapes to coop up in closets, he has to obey certain regulations that have the authorization of religions. Sex, for example, is monitored by Yeo-jin in Samaritan, the Tale of Revenge,(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritan_Girl) where it is carried out in perfect harmony with the music of water in Spring, Summer. The father of Jae-yeong has to teach his daughter’s companions, often violently, the value and sanctity of sex, where as it’s quite natural according to the chief monk.
It may be because of this artistic independence that Kim is best known for his landscape films. It is also part of his country's political assertion.
