Outreach
Video Lending Library
Korea
- Program Title: Why has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East
- EASC Code: KW-01
- Series Title:
- Region/Country: Korea
- Language: Korean
- Subtitles: English
- Subject: Movie & TV Drama, Religion & Philosophy
- Program Type: Feature
- Media Type: VHS
- Director: Bae-Yong Kyun
- Producer:
- Release Date: 1989
- Running Time: 135 min.
- Color or BW: Color
- Program Abstract: "A much more serious treatment of Buddhism than Bernardo Bertolucci's Little Buddha, this 1989 Korean feature by BaeYong-kyun (who produced, directed, shot, and edited) has become something of a cult film, and it's easy to understand why. The title is an unanswerable Zen koan, at one point echoing the narrator's queries: "Who is Buddha? Who isn't he?" The skeletal plot concerns an old master, a young disciple, and an orphaned boy in a remote Korean monastery in the mountains, but the film's main offering is its contemplation of and inexhaustible fascination with the natural world; indeed, we periodically have the sensation that the narrative has been suspended almost entirely for the sake of this meditation. Full of ravishingly beautiful images rather than ravishingly beautiful shots, the film conveys not so much a filmic intelligence as a Buddhist intelligence that's being translated, step-by-step, into movie terms; the film seems to reach us from a certain remove, with positive as well as negative consequences. Count on something slow, arresting, and lovely, and if you're looking for drama, expect to find it internally. " in the 1993 Sight & Sound Critics' Poll." -- Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Chicago Reader
- Data Entry Date: 2/2/1999
