Siren Song: How ‘Past Lives’ Gloriously Redefines the Romantic Drama
Forget your typical Hollywood romance. With her debut feature, Korean-Canadian auteur Celine Song crafts an unrequited love story with a texture and tenderness all of its own.
good.film
a year ago
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Why should I see Past Lives?
No, there’s no action or explosions: Past Lives’ best special effect is capturing those delicate human emotions that are normally so impossible to express.
What social causes does the film explore?
Racial Equity, Family & Community, Religion & Spirituality
The cinema can be a magical place. The lights fade down, the curtains part and suddenly, we’re in a world where dinosaurs roam around us. Or we’re in a top-secret fighter jet, hurtling past Mach 10. We might not even be on our world at all [cue: lightsabre sound effects].
But movies don’t have to invoke fantasy to thrill us. We might even argue the opposite - aren’t we getting a little, well, bored of blokes in capes? After years of Marvel multiverses, aren’t we saturated with stories set on planets made from pixels, and yearning for something more real?
If you’re crying out “YES, a thousand times yes!”, allow us to introduce you to a new voice that heralds a return to rich, character-led stories. It’s a feature debut from a filmmaker who’s solely interested in the subtlety that makes up the human experience. Because sometimes, there’s more explosive power in a longing look than a thousand Death Stars.
With Past Lives, Korean-Canadian filmmaker Celine Song transports us in a way that classical cinema lovers will simply relish. No CGI - just humans, words, and emotions. Using two simple cuts, she jumps forward twelve years in the lives of Nora and Hae-Sung, then twelve more: introducing us to two childhood sweethearts, then inviting us into their separation and reconnection as adults. It’s movie time-travel, minus the DeLorean.
Sure, as jump cuts go, it’s no bone/spaceship from 2001: A Space Odyssey. But where Kubrick used his to symbolise mankind’s leap from tools to technology, Song taps into another universal human truth: love, connection, and fate. And boy, do Koreans have a complicated relationship with fate (more on that below).
This subtle romantic drama is the kind of film that speaks volumes without anyone exchanging a word - just a long, loaded glance will do. It’s also absolutely dripping with yearning (can yearning drip?) in a way that 21st century movies rarely make time for anymore.
What is Past Lives about?
Call us biased, but Past Lives begins like the best stories: girl meets boy. Walking home from school together each day, Na Young and Hae Sung form a connection that blossoms into a sweet romance. But fate (good old movie villain that it is) has other plans. Na Young's family suddenly decide to leave the country for Canada, and the pair are forced to say ann-yeong.
Flash cut to twelve years later, and Na Young is now Nora, an aspiring New York City playwright. Remember when Facebook was still kinda new, and every second ding was a digital blast from the past? Hae Sung's been searching - and failing, thanks to Nora’s name change. But the wonder of Skype (remember: it’s 2010) sees the pair reignite that old spark.
Could the universe’s pesky sliding doors be opening back up for these unrequited lovers? Not this time. Nora’s booked into a fancy writer's retreat, and Hae Sung's off to China for a deep language study. Sensing herself falling into an impossible long-distance relationship, and keen to put all her energy into her career, Nora pulls the plug on their Skype connection. Another fateful avenue goes unexplored.
A second twelve-year jump brings us to today. Nora is married to a fellow writer; both happy and making a success of their work. Suddenly, that door to the past cracks open once again. Hae Sung is visiting for just one week - but why? As the past and present collide, Nora and Hae Sung are forced to confront notions of fate, and their enduring feelings for each other.
What does Past Lives have to say about fate and fidelity?
At the core of Past Lives lies an everyday concept for Koreans: “in-yeon”. Stemming from Buddhist philosophy, it means providence or fate between people. So when the adult Nora and Hae Sung meet in person, 24 years after they parted as children, it’s their “in-yeon” that’s finally brought them together.
The in-yeon concept says that “every relationship is meaningful… and no connection is ever lost.” So it’s particularly confusing for (married) Nora to categorise this re-appearance from a childhood flame who was more than a best friend, but never a lover.
Like looking at an image through a series of mirrors, Nora and Hae Sung spend their time in New York together working out what’s real between them, and what’s only layers of memory and perception. Perhaps that’s why they stare at each other for so long? We’re left to ponder whether in-yeon divided them as a couple - or if the connection they share is all it was ever meant to be.
“It’s an in-yeon if two strangers even walk past each other on the street and their clothes accidently brush, because it means there must have been something between them in their past lives.” ~ Nora (Greta Lee)
Did Nora ever want to become more than Skype pals with Hae Sung at age 24? Even if she did, she chose her ambition as a writer over her romantic feelings. This is reflected as a repeating joke between her and Hae Sung, where he teases her about which award she is “destined” to win at each timeframe of their relationship. At 12, it’s the Nobel. At 24, the Pulitzer.
Present day Nora decides it’s the Tony award she’s going to win, to a chuckle from Hae Sung. We sense he really believes it, and acknowledges that South Korea was “too small” to contain Nora and her future. She was always destined to leave for bigger things. “You had to leave because you’re you.” It reaffirms that this is wholly Nora’s story, told from her point of view.
Rather than a clichéd “torn between two lovers” romance, Past Lives gives us a modern exploration of a woman’s emotions and desires that feels authentic to Nora and her choices. Like all of us, she’s made choices that might be messy, confusing or contradictory - but they also feel real. Hae Sung re-enters her life, but he doesn’t upend it. The open flirtation yet ultimately pragmatic decision might make Past Lives one of the most subtly feminist films of 2023.
This female perspective is reinforced by Nora’s marriage to Arthur. After years of commitment, Arthur is processing an unusual re-entry of another man in his wife’s life; one she clearly cares for. The portrayal here is very gentle - far from Hollywood histrionics. Arthur is curious, and perhaps concerned, but never threatened; he refrains from any typically masculine bravado. He asks Nora if she’s attracted to Hae Sung? Truthfully, she tells him she doesn’t know.
Past Lives doesn’t miss the chance for some meta humour, either. In bed, Arthur points out that Hae Sung returning after all this time feels just like a movie. And if it was? “I would be the evil white American husband standing in the way of destiny. I’m the guy you leave in the story when your ex-lover comes to take you away.” Through Arthur, Celine Song cheekily hints at what we’ve become conditioned to expect - but Past Lives feels way too real to fall into this kind of tried-and-tested trope.
What does Past Lives have to say about immigration & racial identity?
Perhaps explaining its realism, Past Lives is drawn from writer-director Celine Song’s own immigrant experience (and personal experience, too: Song herself had a Korean childhood sweetheart, and yes, he did come to visit her and her husband one awkward weekend). For Song, it was critical that Nora was two steps removed from Hae Sung - not just across timezones, but also culturally.
“It’s important that Nora is not just a Korean American. She’s a Korean-Canadian-American, and I’m a Korean-Canadian-American. It’s easy to say, well, she immigrated because her family immigrated, right?” Song says. “But for her to immigrate again, from Canada to the U.S. so she can pursue her dreams… actually, that is an important detail.”
The Transcultural Mental Health Centre describes immigration as akin to a grieving process, where “diasporic identities [can] throb with a sense of loss, anger and confusion”. So Hae Sung’s sudden reappearance provides somewhat of a painful metaphoric echo for Nora - a reminder of the many parts of herself she left behind (including, don’t forget, her own birth name).
Hae Sung speaks only broken English, so Nora uses Korean - a language she only speaks with her mother (paging Dr. Freud). She admits to Arthur that she “feels weird” about her own “Korean-ness” after meeting Hae Sung; that spending time with him makes her feel, somehow, both more Korean and less Korean simultaneously.
“You lose an entire culture and language which was your only language and culture, but you’ve started a new life… straddling the space in between, where both those things are true. [It’s] about two oppositional things coexisting.” ~ Celine Song (Writer/Director)
Nora confesses that she misses Seoul - but does she really miss the city itself, or the soulmate she left there? Another interpretation is that Nora is mourning her 12-year-old Korean self, which now only represents one-third of her life. It’s a very layered probing of cultural identity. When Hae Sung appears, it shakes up and clouds Nora’s perception like sediment in a jar.
Arthur admits that he struggles to connect with the Korean side of Nora (and not for lack of trying - he enjoys playing Korean games and eating Korean food, and is slowly learning the language - things an “evil white American husband” wouldn’t bother doing). He tells Nora that sometimes, she mumbles in Korean in her sleep, and he wishes he could fully understand her.
This culminates in a triangular scene that’s aching with moments left unsaid, as Nora and Arthur treat Hae Sung to dinner in a New York bar on his final night in the city. Nora acts as translator, and as she switches languages sitting between the two men, her past and present “lives” are enmeshed. Gradually, though, the translation fades - and Nora & Hae Sung finally reveal their true feelings to each other in Korean.
Arthur listens passively, but can’t understand - an alienation in his own city, next to his own wife. It will probably get nicknamed “the pasta scene” (that was Hae Sung’s charming dinner request; the only English-language food he knows), but it’s far more nuanced than that. It’s a perfectly distilled emotional metaphor, one that throws into sharp relief how difficult it is to hold onto our ‘multiple lives’ at once. At every point, there’s a choice - and if we’re fully aware, it’s usually accompanied with a loss.
What are critics saying about Past Lives?
- “A film that is at once restrained and brimming with feeling, a movie that could be fairly described as both big and small.” | VANITY FAIR
- ”A delicate tale about missed connections, ‘what if’s and the parts of ourselves we keep buried within… a singularly exquisite film.” | HARPER’S BAZAAR
- “This is a film containing oceans of truth, centuries of longing and vast feelings of open-hearted tenderness.” | GLOBE AND MAIL
- ”A miraculous, wistful drama that speaks with an honesty so affectingly crisp it will turn your conceptions of love, identity and fate on their head.” | THE WRAP
Fully on board, or disagree big time? We’d love to hear your take. Leave a review to share your thoughts with the good.film community!
So what’s the takeaway from Past Lives?
It’s been nearly unanimously praised, so what makes this a must-see? Friends may ask you what Past Lives is about, but explaining the plot just doesn’t cut it. Girl leaves Korea… 25 years pass… boy flies to Manhattan to see her… is that it?
Well, no. That’s not it. Because there’s a poetic, human texture woven through Past Lives that’s nearly impossible to explain. Parse the critic’s reactions, and you’ll see shoots from the same descriptive tree: “bittersweet”, “wrenching” and “tender” all get a healthy run. So why does the film feel this way?
We think it’s because the film manages to capture those indescribable emotions that we all recognise, but struggle to put into words. The slight vertigo of tasting a life you thought had long disappeared. The bowling ball that punches your gut when you see an old photo of an ex. The butterflies that dance inside you when that photo, instead, shows an unrequited crush.
Loaded with subtext - and never quite unfolding the way you expect - it’s a film that makes you feel as if golden lights are twinkling on your soul. If there were an Oscar for Longing Stares, Past Lives would claim more gold at the next Academy Awards than Michael Phelps ever did in the pool.
