We will always be outsiders to those whose stories we view on screen. It’s one of the central appeals of storytelling: to grant us the illusion of interiority into perspectives that would otherwise be inaccessible. In her debut feature, Past Lives director Celine Song breaks this immediately. The first glimpse we get of our central trio is at a distance, slowly dollying in on them at a bar as a pair of disembodied voices hypothesize on the nature of their connection to one another. “Maybe the Asian lady and the white guy are a couple, and the other guy is a friend,” one says. “Or, maybe the Asian lady and the other guy are a couple, and the white guy is a friend” the other retorts. This imagined act of people watching – we never learn the identity of these voices, nor does it matter – fades as the zoom-in slows, now entirely fixed on the woman, Nora (a fantastic Greta Lee). She shakes the hair from her face, and then looks directly into the camera.
The central romance in Past Lives is a collection of carefully composed contradictions that run up against each other in remarkably tender ways. Its narrative may span decades, but the scope remains succinctly small. Title cards that break up the film’s three acts state “12 years pass” rather than “12 years later,” conveying a frank matter-of-factness that mirrors the grandly impersonal way that time often moves in real life. This understatement serves to ground a narrative that in lesser hands could’ve felt too writerly. As one of its central characters, a writer, states: “what a good story this is.” And he’s right. When Nora and Hae Sung (played as an adult by Teo Yoo) first meet, they’re children in a South Korean grade school. The two share a mutual crush, but Nora soon immigrates with her family to America, and they fade out of each other’s lives for well over a decade. When Nora and Hae Sung do reconnect, it’s over Facetime, and only 12 years after that do they finally reunite in person.
Past Lives is less a story of “will they, won’t they” than “will they accept that they didn’t.” The central tension in Celine Song’s remarkable debut script comes from the troublesome pangs of regret that somehow you messed with fate, or that the doorway that once existed for an intangible alternate life has closed. So, 24 years later, Nora is married to a gentle if anxious writer named Arthur (John Magaro), who reacts to the re-emergence of his wife’s childhood sweetheart with commendable understanding. “Childhood sweethearts who reconnect 20 years later and realize they were meant for each other,” he softly whispers one night, both to Nora and himself, “In this story I’d be the evil white American husband standing in the way of destiny.” Hae Sung remains a bit of a cipher, in part by nature of his physical, and to an extent, emotional displacement. Even considering the mutual vulnerability of their reunion, it’s clear who has the upper hand in this dynamic. Nora is in her adopted home turf, anchored by a supportive partner, whilst Hae has taken a significant risk by coming to a foreign country to visit a person who may not even be who he remembers.
Song’s screenplay repeatedly references the concept of in-yun, meaning “providence” or “fate,” in ways that are both playful (“that’s just something Koreans say to seduce someone,” Nora says at one point) and genuine. Proximity and contact, even incidental, can create layers of association between individuals that will gradually progress over successive lives. Thus, much of the visual framing in Past Lives emphasizes the physical positioning and distance between characters. In the initial moments of Nora and Hae’s reunion, Song gorgeously cuts to a shot of the pair as children, equally distanced around a concrete structure. A connection is made between time and place that poetically emphasizes the relationship of their memories to the current moment. In the pairing of two shots, we understand that though these fully-grown adults have not seen each other in nearly a quarter of a century, the sight of one another instantly renders them children again.
The film’s title not only refers to the concept of reincarnation, but to periods of your life that have come and gone. A previous relationship or years lived in a different country can feel like a past life, and the tender geography of DP Shabier Kirchner’s shots conveys this with a careful, sweeping touch. Amongst the film’s many noteworthy images are a beautiful tracking shot panning down from the Brooklyn Bridge as Nora and Hae walk along the waterfront in Dumbo, or a pivotal scene at a restaurant that utilizes the presence, and lack thereof, of characters within the frame to convey the shifting dynamics of a conversation. Both in concept and execution, it’s an exceptionally realized vision.
Greta Lee, previously of Netflix’s “Russian Doll,” slips character effortlessly, allowing for a protagonist whose both relatable and occasionally inscrutable. With so much of the film’s drama expressed through silent stares, it’s a testament to both her and Yoo’s performances that they feel so instantly realized. As Arthur, Magaro is similarly exceptional, displaying a sensitivity akin to the performance he gave in Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow. Much like last year’s Aftersun (also an A24 production), this is a work that deals with the relationship between emotion and time. What isn’t spoken is expressed through gesture, and it relies on the viewer to truly lean in and engage with its imagery. For some, the film could lack incident, but that’s what makes it so special. By declining to move her story into the realm of melodrama, Song creates a truly immersive emotional experience, delicately underscored by a lush musical score by Daniel Rossen and Christopher Bear, previously of the indie rock band Grizzly Bear. The cumulative effect of these elements is a film that gently allows for the concept of imperfect resolutions to relationships that will never truly resolve. Like people, they simply change – lives both past and present that, for a time, can collide in the most beautiful of ways.
Photo courtesy of A24
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