The Land of Drowning Fish

Like the Chinese "Postman in the Mountains", watching the Korean Five Seasons (Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom) by Ki-duk Kim, despite its enchanting scenery, required patience. With very little dialogue, the story of the buddhist monk apprentice progresses through the seasons, revolving around the floating temple upon a secluded lake. Including tormented fish, a couple of open sex scenes and several suicides, the film blends the natural imagery with typically Korean psychological horror.

However, the foreign symbols and religious meanings layered in the Five Seasons present a chance to meditate. The patiently presented bowls and ponds with fish, the Chinese characters on the temple walls, and the myriad statuettes set a beautiful, yet ambivalent stage for regret, atonement and painful deeds of purification.

I have only seen two Korean films so far, the other one being the terrifying masterpiece the Isle. Some equalities between these two have made me question whether the Korean film industry has a special policy concerning animal cruelty. In the Isle, a fish was cut up and made to swim, and in the Five Seasons, a fish died from being left tied to a rock.

Some time ago, a more knowledgeable friend confirmed my intuition that Korean horror movies are often very distressing. The symbolic, cruel deeds in complex and intimate interpersonal settings, imagery of hiding the face and suicides seem to be recurring themes in Korean films. They probably reflect the strict Korean beliefs about shame, the suicide rate in this socially tightly knit country being almost as high as in Japan.

However, the Five Seasons adds up to more than a horror film. It presents a cyclic view of life through all the hardships, and eventually manages to present the concept of new beginning in the new genration. The structure follows the classical Chinese model of argumentation - starting from a saying, building the progression of the story upon it, and presenting it again in the end as confirmed through experience.

Personally, I found the cyclic argumentation pattern made the story too transparent and fatalistic to my taste - like an antique tragedy in a ruthless world of ideals where you see the characters you sympathise with inevitably ruining their lives. However, I think the beautifully presented foreign sceneries and objects, together with the unusual patience of the camerawork may generally make it worth watching.