inq: What's a Zen movie?

[Mark Schilling]

Re the "Zen movie" discussion. One example of an explicitly "Zen" film that
comes to mind is "Why Did Bodhi Dharma Go to The Orient?," which Iwanami
Hall screened in 1991. For the curious, here is my Japan Times review:

Why Did Bodhi Dharma Go to the Orient?
By Mark Schilling

 
     Bae Yong-Kyun's "Why Did Bodhi Dharma Go To The 
Orient?" takes its title from a koan -- a verbal key to 
unlocking one's Zen mind. But those who try to grasp the key 
find it very slippery indeed. Why did a Buddhist monk make 
the long, hard journey from India to China in the sixth 
century? 

     To a historian, the answer may seem obvious; Bodhi 
Dharma went to the East to spread Buddhism. To a Zen priest, 
the answer lies beyond logic, historical or otherwise. And 
yet it is a plain as the nose on your face! To the student 
earnestly seeking the Way -- and desperately racking his 
brain for the solution to this riddle -- it may seem madden
ing, this "plainness."    
       How much more maddening for a filmmaker, intent on 
communicating the essence of Zen to an audience! He is faced 
with a impossible task. And in Korea, where film financing 
for uncommercial subjects is as hard to find as a rose in a 
rock garden, he is seemingly defeated from the start. 

       Bae Yong-Kyun, a university professor, not only made 
his film, but did it virtually singlehanded; the credits list him as
director, scriptwriter,director of photography, art director and editor.
Also, the film went on to win the Grand Prize at the Locarno International
Film Festival. His 
is an amazing accomplishment.

       The film itself, not surprisingly, is as uncompromising as the old
mountain priest who is one of its central figures. He has absorbed Zen into
his very bones; the film tries to exemplify it in every frame. The result
is similar to a session of zazen; flashes of insight, moments of drowsiness
and pain. The film does tell stories, but they are as enigmatic -- and
tantalizing -- as a Zen fable. Why, we 
wonder, are these people doing these strange things?

       Why, for example, does a young man abandon his blind 
mother and sister to serve as an assistant to the old 
priest, who lives like a hermit in a remote mountain temple? 
Isn't he simply being selfish? Why is he seeking his own 
salvation when he could be helping others? 

       He tells himself that Bodhi Dharma followed the same path -- and did
enormous good. He also tortures himself with the thought that he is an
undutiful son and brother. 

       The film gives no easy answers. Yes, this search-
after-wisdom is selfish, it says, but it is also necessary. 
The young priest can no more abandon his quest -- or his 
teacher -- than leap out of his skin. Ironically, it is just 
this kind of leap that his teacher demands. 

       There is also another resident at the temple, a boy. 
Like the two priests, he lives apart from the outside "world 
of illusion." But unlike them, he did not choose to come to the temple. He
has grown up hearing his elders speak of Zen, but has never consciously
sought its truths. 

     Boy-like, he throws rocks at a flock of birds and injures one. Though
he cares for it, the bird dies. As a kind of karmic retribution, the boys
falls into a river and 
starts thrashing for dear life. But, suddenly, he lets himself go and finds
that, instead of drowning, he floats. He has learned an important rule of
swimming -- and life. 

     The films is filled with similar moments of revelation. 
Although the young priest questions and the old priest 
preaches (contrary to the strong, silent stereotype, this 
Master is as full of pithy wisdom as Barry Fitzgerald), the 
film presents most of these moments minus dialogue. It is 
the images, more than the voices, that we remember. The 
young priest begging silently for alms on a crowded Seoul 
street, the boy following an ox home through a dark forest, 
the old priest meditating in the dimly lit temple, his dark 
form outlined on the glowing shoji. 

       If anything, Bae is too much in love with his images, 
not enough with his characters. Frame by frame, the film is 
a masterpiece of composition and lighting (it would make a lovely book of
stills), but it presents its three heroes as Zen exemplars. The actors, all
amateurs, are well-suited for their roles and turn in fine performances.
But the film 
gives us only glimpses of them as human beings, as when the 
old priest laughingly extracts the boy's bad tooth with a piece of string
or the young priest grimly tends the fire that is consuming his master's
corpse. 

       Perhaps this emotional austerity is necessary to the 
film's message, but it is also wearing. We can feel the 
passion that Bae put into this project (he reportedly spent 
three years filming and one editing), but we leave it hungry 
for pleasure. Wrong expectations are to blame; Bae is offer
ing us enlightenment, not entertainment. The theater should 
hire a priest to give worldly patrons a thwack on the shoulder when their
attention starts to wander. It would definitely create the right atmosphere
for this most meditative of movies.