Mandala (1981)

Mandala is, one could say, a variation on Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund: a rare film, poetically made, to be able to do justice to such a theme. It is about Buddha, the nature of Buddha: it is about dogma and freedom outside it, about respect and freedom outside of it. The film flows like a river, like the river in Hesse's Siddhartha, a river turning in and out with slow purpose, and Jisan and Pobun meet and lose each other and then again meet each other, just like Siddhartha and Govinda. However, Pobun is more Narcissus than Govinda, with no one person's distinct way superior to the other's. Pobun is tormented, but sure and steadfast and trusting and loving, and seeking to know himself through himself; Jisan is the rogue and can also be steadfast in his own way, but he is also tormented, lusting after life and knowing himself through others, like Goldmund's quest. Both men seem to stand on opposite extremes of religious mores and yet stand hand in hand in the spiritual domain.

Elegantly shot, the film's slow rhythm is beautifully punctuated by Buddhist chants, and some of the shots are a delight to watch for their patience, which lets the viewer be immersed in the film's environment. Pobun in particular is very well played by Ahn Sung-kee, and the remaining cast is doing well, though I feel that the most important character of Jisan could have been played better. Overall, Mandala is yet another deep, sensitive film from South Korea.

Bomnaleun Ganda

Hur Jin-ho gives yet another fine romantic film, Bomnaleun Ganda (int'l title: One Fine Spring Day); this one charts the course of a love story, from its birth to its death and offshoots. In the process of doing so, the film explores girls' typical changeableness (often bordering on fickleness), guys' honesty and loyalty, and how human lives and loves undergo seasonal changes as much as time and place. If love could heed, it also warns of not to fall in love with someone who is merely feeling lonely.

For that is what Eun-su feels: lonely. That doesn't mean that she will jump into anyone's bed; but when she feels drawn to Sang-woo with his artistic temperament and strong arms, she lets herself drift into it ... which Sang-woo naively thinks as her loving him; for he does love her, truly and beautifully and forever. Sang-woo's giving it a name, of asking her to meet his family, makes the smooth car ride bump: Eun-su realises that she will miss Sang-woo a lot, but she has other priorities. And then starts a very familiar, very often played out story of heartbrokenness and betrayal: it is here that the film stands the strongest. Sang-woo's utter incapability of understanding what's going on, the impossibility for him to make any sense of it and accept it: anyone who has loved deeply and lost, he knows what Sang-woo is going through.

Sang-woo will keep on loving her: but will learn to reject her, and still cherish what they had together, their story. Like his grandmother rejects the older pictures of his grandfather, he also will learn to live with what was beautiful, and reject what is no more so. It does not mean that he has escaped from reality: rather, he invents a multidimensional reality. He has grown up: he now carries all - pain, joy and love - in his heart at a given moment of time, and life has only become richer for him. Maybe more so since he wasn't successful with Eun-su.

There are very few dialogues in the film: Sang-woo plays a sound recorder, and so the film has ample scope for silences and nature's sounds, which gives the film a poetic beauty, just like Jin-ho's Palwolui Christmas had. Eun-su looks pretty but never got my sympathy; however, she does fit the role. The rest of the cast fit their parts very well. The music used in the film is well known, but that doesn't subtract from the charm and pathos it adds here. Korea is again shot in beautiful ways, making the film overall a little gem worth knowing.

Palwolui Christmas

What, finally, do we leave behind? More importantly, what do we think we are going to leave behind: is it permanence established and enshrined through concrete, famous acts; or is it a seed floating in the air, in memories of someone who cherished you, who loved you, who could not live without you, but now is living, surviving you, maybe has forgotten you mostly, and yet through whose unconscious shapings of destinies, a merest flutter keeps living - as if one were the wind, with no name and yet everywhere? It is with this timeless pondering of men that Palwolui Christmas (int'l title: Christmas in August), a beautiful film from S. Korea, and Asia, deals with: but not philosophically, nor discursively; but poetically, through a beautiful romance that even if will not be fulfilled will never be called doomed, that even if never uttered will long survive all the vociferous pulsations of men and women - like a river that will flow on, as the seasons change, wilt and bloom.

Photographers, equally those that take passport-size photos as those that capture lands and people, have long held my imagination: often, I have thought of this tribe, who are so sensitive and so much at peace, yet. Han Suk-kyu as Jung-won, a small photographer, plays the role to a poignant perfection: he has long ago accepted the inevitable but he has held on to his character, his patience and his goodness through it all; and through it all, he understands and cares for the people who come to his shop or whom he meets, even if the contact would be a moment's. Every moment can carry great significance; the old woman has a long family to remember her, but Jung-won's desire to have his memorial portrait taken is not absurd even if he has no one he's leaving behind: he will be rather immortalised through the portrait of the girl, who loved him over all the other smart, macho and more ready men, for whatever he is. The girl whom he could carry with him to his sleep: a love that was beautiful for being only felt, in little intimacies, in stolen instants, under umbrellas in rain.

He leaves, and yet she is stronger; he is not, and yet she will always know he is.