“The rare kind of film that is felt more than it is understood.”

In addition to being one of the great composers of his generation, Claude Debussy was also a well-travelled man who loved exploring the world as much as he could. This is mentioned at the start of And the Moon Sets Over the Temple That Was, a film that borrows its title from one of his compositions, and it is used to set the stage for Justin Jinsoo Kim’s experimental odyssey into the culture of his native South Korea, with a very particular focus. The film consists of footage shot in various parts of the country, including beaches, mountains and bodies of water, as well as some urban centres of varying size. It is quickly established that these places carry deeper histories which are not immediately visible, but once we look beneath the nondescript surface, we can see the dense meanings that they often contain. The foundation of the film is the director’s fascination with the number of headless statues of Buddha that populate the country – regardless of where he goes, there will always inevitably be a monument that has lost its head. He uses this as the starting point for his stunning film that explores the beauty of history as something shapeless and malleable, where different meanings can be projected onto the same physical spaces, while the core significance remains intact for those willing to undertake the act of philosophical excavation. It all ultimately coalesces in this film that examines how a single shot of a seemingly ordinary landscape can contain layers of commentary relating to time, memory and history without being compelled to name or interpret them explicitly.

What draws us into And the Moon Sets Over the Temple That Was is the execution, which piques our curiosity long before we know the specific angle that the film will be taking. The film is composed entirely of wordless footage. People weave in and out of the frame, but they are nothing more than decorations, existing solely for an ornamental purpose, with the landscapes (both natural and urban) being the primary characters. There isn’t any spoken dialogue, but instead sporadic subtitles that offer fragments of context, introducing key ideas to help us understand what we are seeing, while the true meaning is gleaned simply from looking at the images the director puts on screen. This approach creates a subtle but deliberate dissonance, since the visuals lean towards the meditative and deeply grounded, whereas the text introduces more abstract ideas, touching on themes relating to history, mythology, religion and archaeology without these ever becoming the focus of the film. The images say everything that we need to know, and the viewer is tasked with simply observing these landscapes, drawing our own connections and interpretations through the paltry information we are provided, rather than being guided towards a clear conclusion. For a film that is handling centuries of history, the choice to focus on the stillness of simple compositions that exist without much context outside what is absolutely necessary reinforces the core themes and makes the film far more nuanced than we’d expect based on a cursory glance.

However, as stunning as the images may be, there is a purpose to And the Moon Sets Over the Temple That Was, which becomes increasingly clear as we work our way through the film. The central motif is the search for headless statues of Buddha, which begins as a metaphor that grounds the film and gives it purpose, but covertly becomes indicative of something much deeper. The idea of seeking out figures that have arguably lost their most crucial part raises questions about whether or not meaning can survive different kinds of fragmentations. Some of these heads have been destroyed by humans (either purposefully or by accident), others have simply eroded with time – and in exploring this idea, the director questions whether something loses significance when it is physically incomplete, or if the process of such a loss can actually say more about a place and its people than had the statue remained intact, with new meaning emerging in the absence of something vital. This principle can be asserted about all the landscapes Kim explores, implying that a single location may hold multiple meanings, some of which even begin to contradict each other with time. A beach can be viewed as an important archaeological site, or a place where social media influencers can take some gorgeous pictures. One may be more shallow than the other in a cultural sense, but they both have meaning, and ultimately can simultaneously occupy the same space both physically and metaphorically.

And the Moon Sets Over the Temple That Was is the rare kind of film that is felt more than it is understood, where we don’t have much to say but certainly feel its different complexities deep within our souls, almost as if the director has touched on something more primal than we find in conventional documentary filmmaking. It’s a film of contradictions, and its quiet and methodical approach conveys more profound meanings that require some patience from the viewer, as well as some careful concentration, to fully realise. Throughout the film, Kim places photographs taken decades before in the shot, showing how certain landscapes have changed – this suggests that, while certain landmarks may be gone (exemplified in the motif of the headless Buddha statues), the past remains, partially obscured but ripe for reinterpretation. It becomes richer and less clearly defined, which Kim posits is an essential process. The director does not peddle easy answers, and instead prefers to create a film that exists in fragments and through implication, contributing to the central intention to explore the march of time in a decidedly unorthodox manner. The past is not replaced by the present, but rather simply changes form, shifting in shape and being reinterpreted by the people who occupy these spaces. And the Moon Sets Over the Temple That Was is a fascinating experimental work that uses striking imagery to examine complex ideas relating to history and existential philosophy, taking the viewer on an enthralling, meditative journey into that ambiguous space between eras, showing the extent to which they influence one another in unexpected and intriguing ways.