Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East?

A small temple in the mountains. There are three people: an old master who is close to death; Kibong, a young monk who came from the city; and Haejin, an orphaned boy. Kibong left his blind mother behind to come here and cannot account for it. The boy kills a bird by accident and thinks for the first time about what death is. The master asks the two of them questions and does not answer them. The film moves almost without speech: water, trees, fire, an ox, the air on the mountain. Bae Yong-kyun directs the Korean film; two hours and twenty-five minutes. Bae was a professor of painting and made the film alone over roughly seven years, writing, shooting, editing and financing it himself. It won the Golden Leopard at Locarno in 1989. The title is a Zen question, and the film does not answer it either.