Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring

Growing up in Canada, time always felt like a straight line to me. You study, you work, you move forward. 'Progress' was the ultimate goal, a deeply Western immigrant narrative of building a better future from scratch. Yet, watching my parents navigate their new lives, I noticed a different rhythm within them—an implicit understanding that life doesn't just march forward; it circles back. Sometimes we lose everything, only to begin again. This Eastern, specifically Buddhist, concept of time as a cycle rather than a line is beautifully encapsulated in director Kim Ki-duk’s cinematic masterpiece, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring.

Set entirely on a small, floating hermitage on the serene Jusan Pond, the film watches a young monk grow under the guidance of an older master. The title itself gives away the narrative structure. In Korean culture, the four seasons are deeply embedded in our poetry, food, and philosophy. In this film, they represent the stages of human life and the Buddhist concept of Samsara—the endless cycle of birth, suffering, death, and rebirth. For international viewers used to the Western narrative arc of rushing toward a clear resolution, the film’s structure is a profound invitation to shift perspectives.

In 'Spring', the child monk ties stones to animals for his amusement, an act of innocent cruelty that introduces the concept of Karma (Eop). The master’s warning—that the stone will weigh on his heart forever—ripples through the subsequent seasons. 'Summer' brings the blistering heat of lust and attachment, while 'Fall' descends into the bitter harvest of obsession, violence, and eventual realization. 'Winter' strips the world bare, offering a rigorous, freezing space for atonement. When the master paints the Heart Sutra onto the wooden deck and the young monk must carve out the characters with a knife, we witness a deeply physical, meditative approach to repentance. It is not about instant forgiveness bestowed from above, but the arduous, mindful undoing of one's own karmic knots.

For those of us in the diaspora, this cyclical worldview offers a strange comfort. Intergenerational trauma and the struggles of immigrant life often feel like heavy stones tied to our backs. We sometimes find ourselves repeating the emotional patterns of our parents, clashing between two cultures, and getting trapped in our own 'Summer' or 'Fall'. Yet, the film reminds us that winter is not the end. The ice always melts. The return to 'Spring' at the end of the film—where the once-young monk is now the master with a new child apprentice—is not a tragedy of history repeating itself. It is a beautiful testament to resilience.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring is a quiet, meditative mirror. Whether we are sitting in Seoul or Toronto, the film asks us to look closely at our own seasons. It teaches us that redemption is not a final destination we reach at the end of a long road, but a continuous, forgiving cycle. We are allowed to make mistakes, to freeze, to thaw, and ultimately, to bloom once more.