Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers!
‘You did meet the 12 year old (Na Young), and I’ve left her with you’
- Nora, ‘Past Lives’ (2023)
I can understand the sentiments of the audience while watching Celine Song’s Past Lives. A film using the popular romantic troupe of childhood sweethearts reunited, Past Lives peers into an alternate tale, and one that I find rather refreshing, and one that I find that may mirror many others’ (including mine) faded relationships.
Past Lives dives into the ‘what if’’ of almost relationships and closure that many people often sought after. In this narrative, we are surrounded by three main characters: the sweethearts Na Young (also known as Nora, played by Greta Lee), Hae Sung (played by Teo Yoo) and Na Young’s husband Arthur (played by John Magaro). The film is anchored by the blossoming romance between Nora and Hae Sung that is cut short by external forces, and after a considerable time in between their own lives, the two friends reunite and answer unsaid questions that must have haunted them during their absence in communication. These are answered through awkward conversations that almost feel like small talk, added the cultural difference between the two allows the audience to see the certainty of the outcome of this friendship.
‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there’
- L.P. Hartley (1953)
Throughout the film, the dialogue in Past Lives echoes has me thinking of my favourite quote from L.P. Hartley “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”. We see moments between Nora and Hae Sung growing in different directions, although perhaps not so much for Hae Sung (as he’s often seen wearing the same shades of blue throughout) as they pursue their own goals and ambitions. Song also invites the audience to root for the success of these two characters when they first reunite by giving us intimate moments. Similar to Wong Kar Wai’s unforgettable In the Mood for Love, Past Lives uses framing through doorways and window-frames as metaphorical captures of fleeting moments. The apt use of Skype calls between the two at the start of the film with their jutted movements accurately depict how we as humans tend to look back on memories fondly, blurred and edited. Additionally, the pacing captures how memories of others come floating in and out, we can choose to forget about someone, yet every once or so an associated subject would pull us back into an imaginary orbit. In this case, Hae Sung was holding onto those memories during his military duties – where a taste of happiness gave him motivation to forge forward.
Still from Past Lives (2023), Celine Song
What Past Lives does brilliantly well is the background placement during the pauses of dialogue (or as Miyazaki would say ‘Ma’). As every film director would do, the background offers a hint of the psychology and layer of understanding of the characters. The scene of Hae Sung and Nora against a carousel in New York is one of my favourites – we can see the small budding tension humming between the two. With just enough music against the hecticness of the city, we can see Hae Sung is somewhat comfortable in reliving their childhood while the Nora is the opposite. The colour of the carousel is arguably representative of their childhood spinning in the past against the reality of the grey and muted blues highlighted in the cloudy skies of New York. Other moments include the first physical reunion of the two in the park of bright greens to the eventual dull coloured boat ride also demonstrates the extent of how far reminiscing could go – for the small tastes of sweetness can only sustain one for so long before being pushed to reality. It’s particularly palpable in the final moments, where the friends’ conversation at a moody-lit bar signifies the diminishing of the quick ecstasy of closure the two have desired for so long.
Throughout the film, I saw myself in Teo Yoo’s character. Like him, I went through a phase of intense pining for the what-ifs. A romantic I am, I met up with my first (unhealthy) love from primary school hoping for a grand love story often romanticised in dramas (K-Dramas especially…). Nora, on the other hand, was like the embodiment of a conversation I’d had with my psychologist. Her memorable line ‘you did meet the 12 year old (Na Young), and I’ve left her with you’ served as a poignant reminder whenever I catch myself tasting the past coasted in sickly syrup. After all, as our identities shift with age, we tend to leave the best memories behind while we outgrow the worst. In essence, the past can never grow into what we desire today.
The film heavily uses the concept of ‘Inyun’ or (in Cantonese Yuen Fan 緣分), a Korean term for providence or fate . The principle of Inyun is a romantic painting of our interconnected relationships – be it a brush with a stranger’s sleeve when passing each other, sitting on the train besides each other, or marriage - themes frequently revisited in Song’s characters. Beyond the romantic connections, there are also the friendships that are briefly seen between Hae Sung and Arthur. The subtle reminder of the film highlights how an individual can easily romanticise these scenarios.
At the conclusion of Past Lives, we see the two friends bidding goodbye in the gentle night as an affirming reminder that fate can have their own endings as well – for certain relationships can only exist for so long because that is the destined duration either party needed each other. And I can understand why the audience was left emotional towards the end.
For it’s not just romantic relationships that have their own goodbyes, it encompasses family bonds and friendships as well.
Still from Past Lives (2023), Celine Song
Related works: In the Mood for Love - Stitches in time through lenses tinted with neon nostalgia (2021)
Images and information sourced from:
Tribute.Ca, “Past Lives Photo” , tribute.ca, accessed 29 December 2023, https://www.tribute.ca/galleries/past-lives/169185/1/
IMDb, “Past Lives (2023) Photo Gallery - IMDb” , IMDb, accessed 29 December 2023, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13238346/mediaindex?page=2&ref_=tt_mv_close