Lion’s Roar Associate Editor Noel Alumit reviews A24’s new movie, Past Lives, the debut film of director Celine Song.
Photo courtesy of A24.
Past Lives, one of the latest movies from indie powerhouse A24, is a gem of a love story. In a time when movie choices include superheroes with animation and special effects, director Celine Song’s debut film is a breath of deeply needed fresh air. No bullets or bombs in this story. It’s a quiet movie, a kind of walking meditation into the lives of two people who deeply love each other. The only thing explosive about the movie is the burning question: Will these childhood sweethearts end up together?
There is what the heart wants and what the head wants. Whatever the decision, suffering ensues.
Past Lives is about Nora, a Korean girl who immigrates to Canada with her family. She leaves behind Hae Sung, a crush that left an indelible mark in her memory. Years later, they connect on social media, forming an intense online relationship. Nora decides to move on from her internet romance to focus on her writing career in New York, eventually meeting and marrying another writer, Arthur. More years pass and Nora meets Hae Yung on his visit to New York. The both of them are obviously still attracted to each other and the romantic tension between them is palpable.
Nora explains to her husband the delicate nature in which people connect in a lifetime, inspired by in-yun, a Korean Buddhist concept of reincarnation and fate. “In-yun,” Nora explains, “means providence or fate. If two strangers walk by each other on the street, and their clothes accidentally brush, that means there have been 8,000 layers of in-yun between them.”
What makes the movie incredibly watchable is the in-yun between Nora and Hae Sung. The intense chemistry between them indicate that, yes, thousands upon thousands of lifetimes between them must have transpired in order for them to have this kind eternal bond. How it plays out in this lifetime is yet to be seen.
Nora, played by a charming and intriguing Greta Lee, represents every person who wondered, what if? What if she had stayed in Korea? What if she had continued to pursue an online relationship with Hae Sung? What if she left her husband, Arthur, to follow her heart?
Hae Sung, superbly acted by Teo Yoo, gives the right amount of passionate restraint for a married woman he is deeply in love with. He appears wounded in every scene, except when he encounters Nora. If longing was a person, it would be Hae Sung.
John Magaro’s Arthur is a bottleneck of restraint, concern and curiosity as he sees his wife engage with her former sweetheart. Shabier Kirchner’s cinematography gives us a New York City that is cold yet hopeful — a fitting bardo for lives in transition.
However, it is Celine Song’s writing and directing that cocoons this movie. She obviously loves these characters and the exploration of romantic and spiritual love. There is what the heart wants and what the head wants. Whatever the decision, suffering ensues. Rarely, the two will meet, but sometimes they do. If not in this lifetime, perhaps the next.