REVIEW • PAST LIVES // FILM, CULTURE

February 18, 2024 — Celine Song’s film Past Lives (2023) is a character study that beautifully portrays longing, empathy, love, and questions about identity.

In her directorial debut, Song embraces a philosophy that was famously expressed by the late Nora Ephron, — the notion that “Everything is copy” — or that everything that happens in life is inspiration for the written word. In line with this philosophy, Song brings a story inspired by her own life to the screen.

In the most meta moment of the movie, Nora (Greta Lee) is talking in bed with her husband Arthur (John Magaro) about her childhood friend Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) who is visiting her in New York from Korea. “I was just thinking about what a good story this is,” says Arthur.

It is a good story, and I’m glad Song decided to take her “everything” and make it into this movie, which explores the connection between Na Young (later Nora) and Hae Sung, the childhood friend she leaves behind in Korea when she and her family immigrate to Canada.

“If you leave something behind, you gain something, too.”

Greta Lee, who I first saw as the hilarious Soojin in Girls, delivers a nuanced performance that showcases humour, contemplation, affection, and ambition, bringing the complex character of Nora to life. John Magaro warmly and genuinely portrays Arthur’s emotional balancing act between empathy and understanding, and the pinch of insecurity he feels as he witnesses Nora and Hae Sung’s close connection. Teo Yoo is an actor I could watch for days. Like many of my favourites, he says so much without even saying a word. His body language and facial expressions communicate Hae Sung’s childlike innocence, as well as his self-conscious tension and vulnerable sensitivity.

Early in the film, as the 12-year-old versions of Na Young and Hae Sung play in the park before Na Young and her family leave for Canada, Na Young’s mom says to Hae Sung’s mom, “If you leave something behind, you gain something, too.” 12 years later, when Nora and Hae Sung reconnect via Facebook, she is living alone in New York, studying playwriting. Hae Sung has completed his mandatory military service in Korea and is living at home with his parents, studying to be an engineer. The two engage in a series of sweet, flirtatious video chats, which inevitably lead to the idea of visiting each other. Wrestling with the idea of going back to Korea to see Hae Sung, Nora chooses to continue to move forward in her life and puts her communication with Hae Sung on pause. She travels to Montauk for a writer's residency, where she meets Arthur, a fellow writer who later becomes her husband. On the other side of the world, Hae Sung travels to China for work where he begins dating a young woman he meets there.

In a dimly lit, intimate scene in the backyard of their shared writers’ house, Nora explains to Arthur the Korean concept of in-yun (inyeong), which is a central theme in the film. She says,

It means providence or fate but it’s specifically about relationships between people. I think it comes from Buddhism and reincarnation. It’s an in-yun if two strangers even walk by each other in the street and their clothes accidentally brush because it means there must have been something between them - in their past lives. If two people get married, they say it’s because there have been 8,000 layers of in-yun over 8,000 lifetimes.

Another 12 years later we find Nora and Arthur living in the East Village, enjoying their creative careers. Now back in Korea, Hae Sung, who is single, decides to travel to New York to visit Nora. During his visit, Nora starts to unpack her feelings for Hae Sung, as she wonders who they are to each other. She tells Arthur,

He was just this kid in my head for such a long time and then he was just this image on my laptop and now he is a physical person. It’s really intense but I don’t think that that’s attraction, I think I just missed him a lot. I think I missed Seoul.

She feels nostalgic for her childhood, where she feels her Korean identity was partly left behind, but she also loves her life and career in New York with Arthur. After Nora spends the day with Hae Sung, she tells Arthur, “I feel so not Korean when I’m with him but also in some way more Korean? It’s so weird.”

Visually, Past Lives is a watercolour palette of earth tones, blues, and cool greys highlighted with natural light, warm sunsets, and golden hues. Cinematographer Shabier Kirchner shot the movie using 35 mm film which gives it both a naturalistic and cinematic look and feel. Wide shots and close-ups are expertly used in the film, as the camera zooms in during intimate moments, particularly when Nora and Hae Sung are feeling a close connection, and retreats away from them when they are more disconnected.

I loved the scenes in the film that echoed or mirrored previous ones. For example, the final scene of the film that shows Hae Sung looking out of a car window as he leaves New York after saying goodbye to Nora prompts us to recall a similar shot of him looking out of a car window before he says goodbye to Na Young in Korea. This second shot seems more peaceful and less forlorn than the first.

The series of scenes that echo each other when Nora and Hae Sung are seen standing and facing each other helps to visually communicate their varying degrees of connection and the distances between them. We see this in Madison Square Park when they reconnect, on the subway as they get closer, and in their final scene together as they say goodbye.

Lingering flashbacks are powerfully used in the film. When Nora and Hae Sung see each other in Madison Square Park, we see a flashback to the day they played in the park in Korea. I loved the choices of the two different stone sculptures in these mirroring scenes. Another dramatic flashback is used when we see a nighttime version of the friends’ first goodbye at the base of the steps to Na Young’s Korean home while witnessing Nora and Hae Sung’s present-day last goodbye in New York, which is also shot at night.

Even more than feelings, Past Lives left me with questions.

Deeply symbolic, the film uses motifs like windows, walking, and the carousel to tell its story. The multiple walk-and-talk scenes had me thinking that Celine Song must be a fan of Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy (Sunrise, Sunset, Midnight), as those three films also tell an epic tale about connection, destiny, and time. A cinematic location for Hae Sung and Nora’s conversation, Jane’s Carousel in Brooklyn Bridge Park adds symbolism, as like a carousel, the concepts of in-yun and reincarnation travel round and round with no beginning and no end. Intentional or not, this scene gives a nod to Before Sunrise where Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) steal glances at each other in the gondola, looking away just before the other looks back at them, as Nora and Hae Sung do the same here. The carousel lights are later shown being turned off as Nora and Arthur re-confirm their love for each other in bed later that evening.

I loved the costume design in this movie by Katina Danabassis (C’mon C’mon, Ladybird, The Curse). The minimalist, monochromatic ‘90s aesthetic of cardigans, baggy pants, and loose, buttoned-down shirts clothed the characters in a softness reminiscent of Billy Crystal’s comfy cable knit sweater in When Harry Met Sally, or Meg Ryan’s baggy trousers in You’ve Got Mail.

Even more than feelings, Past Lives left me with questions. Can we gain so much distance from someone in our past that they almost become a rose-coloured avatar of themselves in our minds? Do we miss this person, or do we miss who we were when we were with them? Does absence truly make the heart grow fonder or does it make us overthink and romanticize someone? Hae Sung asks Nora, “If you never left Seoul, would I still have looked for you?” I wonder if Nora cried at the end because she feels that with Hae Sung’s return to Korea, a little bit more of her Koreanness is going back with him – although to paraphrase her mom, she’s still gaining a lot by staying in New York.

The sentence “I don’t know” is spoken many times in this movie, which makes me think – maybe the only certainty we have as we make choices, move countries, and choose people to join us along life’s path is that things will often be uncertain. Although the future of their relationship is not yet known, this doesn’t take away from the closeness Hae Sung and Nora feel, and just because a relationship isn’t defined, doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when it ends or pauses. I couldn’t help but think of the scene in Mad Men when Don Draper presents the slide carousel to a group of Kodak executives, and he says,

Nostalgia - its delicate, but potent….in Greek nostalgia literally means “the pain from an old wound.” It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.

Well said, Don Matthew Weiner.

With Past Lives, Celine Song establishes herself as a kind of soulful, contemplative, indie successor to the late great Nora Ephron. Comparisons aside, she is a talented modern filmmaker with her own identity and a strong point of view as a Korean Canadian artist living in America.

Favourite line: “I didn’t know that liking your husband would hurt this much.”

watch this: feel that rating: 4.5/5