[Film Review] ‘Past Lives’ masterfully explores the what-ifs of love
We look at Celine Song’s heart-breaking take on twists of fate and love.
Images throughout: A24.
Korean cinema has never ceased to show great promise. Each year brings forth a tasty array of delectables to dig into and please our palates as filmgoers, meticulously crafted by the ever so dependable and skilful hands of Korean filmmakers.
This rings especially true for Korean Canadian director and playwright Celine Song’s directorial debut Past Lives (2023).
A masterclass in cinematography and blocking, from the fourth wall break in the very first shot, the film invites us to witness this tear jerker of an adolescent romance that persists all the way into adulthood in the hearts of two childhood sweethearts — more or less latently in their respective lives.
The film is painted with foreshadowing and subtle conflict. It doesn’t throw discord in your face, but rather displays it in a more understated, authentic, and human way that truly cuts you to your core. It wrings every last drop of blood from your heart after ripping it out of your chest, and before stomping it into oblivion.
‘Past Lives’ is painted with foreshadowing and subtle conflict.
The story begins with Nora Moon and her family emigrating from Korea to Canada, leaving behind her native name “Na Young”, and Hae Sung, her childhood sweetheart. The estranged pair reconnects 12 years later via the internet and quickly a tangible connection between the two is established, as well as a fondness for one another.
This moment of bliss is brief, however. They cut contact again, as Nora feels she’s losing her footing, not focusing on the task at hand (which is her writing) but more so on someone who is thousands of miles away, with whom the prospect of meeting in real life in the foreseeable future is utopian to say the least.
Time then does its thing and goes on in characteristic unpredictability. You can’t control the weather, and during Nora’s artist’s residency lightning strikes as she meets Arthur, a fellow writer and the man she would end up marrying.
Nora and Arthur share an intimate moment at the artist’s residency.
Nora introduces Arthur to the Korean term in-yeon, meaning ‘providence’ or ‘fate’. It suggests a preordained connection between two people — that their path into finding each other has already been charted since time immemorial. It suggests, if two people meet they’ve already done so, and perhaps then some, in their past lives. This is also where the film aptly gets its name.
Another 12 years pass and Hae Sung seeks Nora out. The two finally reconnect in real life after decades and stroll around the city of New York with couples galore all around them.
Hae Sung and Nora reconnect in New York.
As unfavourable a situation as it is for Arthur, he behaves more amicably and graciously than, I dare say, many would under the same set of circumstances.
He openly communicates his insecurities and qualms without further bitterness or resentment, all the while supporting his wife and being sensitive to her feelings. Even in all his exclusion as the three sip their drinks and two of them converse in a bar, Arthur's patience and faith resumes to be nothing short of admirable.
Even Hae Sung, a man who, as Arthur acknowledges, would have reasonable cause to hold a grudge against him says: “I didn’t know that liking your husband would hurt this much.”
The three have drinks at a bar.
Fate plays a big role in the film and the common philosophy that goes around is that everything happens for a reason and situations unfold just as they should.
We come across a great many ‘what ifs’ within the 106 minutes of runtime, which are all tied to in-yeon and fate.
Arthur wonders what would have been if Nora and he had never met, if things didn’t work out as they did — wouldn’t it be someone else she’d be married to? Hae Sung entertains the thought that what if things had worked out in his favour — would he have been the one to marry Nora?
Nora, however, puts these questions to bed, as she states to her husband: “This is where I ended up, this is where I’m supposed to be.”
In-yeon, suggests that people have already been connected in their past lives.
All of this isn’t to say one can’t give fate a guiding hand. Surely things don’t just happen — we can give fate a little push every now and again. It’s more about recognising when to open the doors that are pointed out for us. Not speaking up when you should is a prime example of letting a door handle go un-wiggled, and incidentally something that Hae Sung excels at.
Both in childhood and adulthood, he’s managed to determinately keep his mouth shut in moments where the words left unspoken could have made such an impact on things that we could hypothetically be watching a very different movie. But things happened as they did, therefore they are as they should be.
It is worth noting that there is no real antagonist in this movie. If you absolutely must (reasonably enough) antagonise someone, or rather something, it would have to be fate itself.
Nora is left to dwell on her emotions when Hae Sung leaves New York.
As the film nears its last frames, Hae Sung, with his cab door, closes this chapter in their lives — one could venture to guess — for good. The saga of the two childhood sweethearts concludes with Nora’s cathartic release in her husband’s arms.
By the time the credits start rolling, you’ll be eyeing the reflection of a watery-eyed fourth wheel going through a vicarious heartbreak on your screen. As your heart finds time to heal from the tear-jerking journey that was Past Lives, you start waiting with agonising anticipation for Song to announce her next project.
By then — with eyes unobstructed by tears — you can see that she is definitely a director to keep a look out for.
Edited by Gabii Rayner.