Past Lives

"Who do you think they are to each other?" A brilliant film by a debut writer and director, Celine Song

Jan 25, 2024

My husband hates it when we’re late to see a movie at the theaters. He says the first 5 minutes of the film are the most important because they tell you what you the film is going to be about. Then I remind him that there are thirty minutes of trailers that are far too long and show us way too much about the upcoming releases. But he likes the trailers and doesn’t want to miss those, either. Which is why, when we showed up to the dollar theater at 6:47 last night to see Miyazaki’s latest film, The Boy and the Heron, and found out the movie was about seven minutes in, Ben asked that we come back next week and be on time. Ah well. He’s right.

In the opening scene of Past Lives, debut feature film from director and screenwriter Celine Song, the camera is situated on one side of a bar. With that perspective, it’s as if we, the viewers, are sitting in the bar and looking across at three people sitting next to each other, a woman between two men.

Then we hear people talking, right next to the camera, but out of view. They echo our thoughts, our questions.

“Who do you think they are to each other?” they ask.

This is the question Past Lives asks us to consider over the next hour and forty-five minutes: who are these three to each other? Who are we to each other? And how do our past lives shape our present lives?

It’s a question of destiny, fate, answered in a way I’ve never seen before in the context of a culture and a religion with which I was previously not familiar.

After the first scene, which peeks our curiosity about the interconnection of the three people across the bar, we go back in time to Korea, to Nora’s childhood, where she has a close friendship with Hae Sung. They’re in school together, and they walk home from school every day, until they reach a fork in the street and part ways. They are friends, but more than friends. Nora has an innocent crush on Hae Sung and thinks she will marry him someday.

But Nora’s parents move her and her sister to the United States. She and Hae Sung say a stoic goodbye and are parted for the rest of their adolescence.

At this point, we might have more guesses on the plot development and where this story will take Nora and Hae Sung. But life is not as simple as a romance novel, and neither is Past Lives.

The rest of the film unfolds in two acts. In the second act, 12 years later, Nora and Hae Sung reconnect in their early 20’s, halfway across the world from each other, catching up over Skype calls. They are both in school, but Nora is especially ambitious. She’s going to be a writer. And ultimately her ambition leads her away from Hae Sung, for now.

In the third act, after another twelve years pass, Nora and Hae Sung reconnect again. This time they are together in person, in New York City. They haven’t seen each other for 24 years. As they talk, they try to figure out who they are to each other, why they keep finding each other.

I personally entered my viewing experience of Past Lives with very little knowledge of the movie. It came highly recommended by my friend Tory, and Ben and I only watched half the trailer because, as I mentioned earlier, trailers are far too long and give way too much away.

I would be loath to spoil the nuances of Past Lives to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet. So at this point, I recommend that you bookmark where you’ve left off in this piece, and come back after you’ve watched it.

Past Lives is available on Apple TV and on Amazon, to rent for the low, low price of $5.99.

Spoilers from here on out!

Rather than this story showing us how Nora and Hae Sung came together, across oceans, to find the one true love they’ve been dreaming of since they were 12 years old, Nora meets another man shortly after telling Hae Sung she wants to take a break from Skyping.

Nora attends a writers workshop in the summer haze of Long Island and this is where she meets Arthur. When the concept of In-Yun is introduced to us in the film, it’s while Nora is talking with Arthur. She says:

“There is a word in Korean. It means ‘providence.’ Or ‘fate.’ But it’s specifically about relationships between people. I think it comes from Buddhism. And reincarnation. It’s an ‘In-Yun’ if two strangers even walk by each other in the street, and their clothes accidentally brush. Because it means there must have been something between them in their past lives. If two people get married, they say it’s because there have been eight thousand layers of In-Yun. Over eight thousand lifetimes.”

Even though Nora has a past life in Korea with Hae Sung, in this moment, we realize Nora and Arthur are the ones with In-Yun. She kisses him, and we find out, twelve years later, that she’s married him.

The tension in the story arrives when Hae Sung arrives in New York City. And though he denies it to his friends back home, he is clearly going to see Nora.

Hae Sung’s reunion with Nora is so tender. Hae Sung is not only Nora’s friend, but he also represents her life in Korea, her childhood, everything she left behind. Even though they are grown adults, they have a childlikeness and innocence with each other.

I think that the stories we tell today have trained us to expect heightened sexual tension in a scene like this, and in the ones following. While they have certainly have chemistry, it feels more driven by curiosity. Part of me wonders if they’re going to have an affair, if she’s going to run away with Hae Sung, but that has more to do with how common that storyline is in American film than with what Celine Song is trying to show.

Not everything can be simply explained by our sexual desires. Not all of our behavior is driven by our sexual desires, although plenty of media would have us think that way.

Still, that doesn’t keep Arthur from worrying. He asks Nora if she finds Hae Sung attractive, and she responds, “He was just this kid in my head for such a long time. And then he was just this image on my laptop. And now, he is a physical person. It’s really intense, but I don’t think that that’s attraction. I think I just missed him. I think I missed Seoul.”

And in meta musings, Arthur voices to Nora what your average American movie viewer would expect from Past Lives: “I was just thinking what a good story this is… Childhood sweethearts who reconnect twenty years later only to realize they were meant for each other… In the story, I would be the evil white American husband standing in the way of destiny.”

Is it destiny for Nora and Hae Sung to be together?

In-Yun is about more than that. It’s not just the layers of our past in this life. It’s layers in past lives. Who knows what Nora and Hae Sung will be to each other in the next life? In this life, Nora’s destiny is with Arthur. She chose a life in American as a playwright. She chose Arthur.

While Nora is catching up with Hae Sung, she keeps asking him why he looked for her. Why did he find her online 12 years ago? Why did he come to see her in New York? But I think that Nora is actually trying to figure out who Hae Sung is to her, not the other way around. She’s trying to figure out what he means to her, what he represents. And after two instances of leaving him, this time Hae Sung is the one saying goodbye and Nora is the one who gets left behind.

In the final scene, there’s an excruciatingly long moment during which we don’t know what’s going to happen. Will Hae Sung and Nora kiss, out of sight of Arthur, while she’s saying goodbye? There is no talking or music, just the two of them gazing intensely into each other’s eyes. But then the Uber arrives, and Hae Sung turns and says, “What if this life is a past life as well, and we are already something else to each other in our next life? Who do you think we are then?”

Nora says, “I don’t know.”

And Hae Sung responds, “Me neither. See you then.”

Nora walks slowly back to her apartment and, when Arthur meets her at the bottom of the steps, she starts crying. And the curtain closes on this three-part play.

Ben and I sat quietly for a moment as the credits started rolling. And then Ben started crying — sobbing, even. Which made me start crying. I had teared up a little bit when Hae Sung said see you then. But this film felt unique in that the emotion simmered beneath the service, but never bubbled over. So often we cry in films because are empathizing with a character that’s emoting big feels. In Past Lives, it was the quietness, along with a beautiful film trick I won’t spoil, that made the goodbye so poignant.

I don’t think you need to believe in the Buddhist idea of In-Yun for Past Lives to move you. For me, the story of Hae Sung and Nora resonated with the pain I’ve experienced over the years: growing up, leaving my childhood home which my parents sold when I was 21, losing my dad, saying goodbye to him, saying, “see you then.”

We all want our pasts to matter, to meet us in the present. We wonder what our pasts and presents have to do with our futures. We wonder if we had followed a different fork in the road, or if a situation had a different outcome, would we be where we are today? Would we be married to whomever we’re married, or still single, or divorced, or widowed? We wonder how much choice plays a part in our destiny.

Past Lives doesn’t give us all the answers. We don’t necessarily get a “happy ending” — one in which two people destined for each other end up together, at the cost of another real, committed relationship. But we do get a little bit of hope through Hae Sung. His bright eyes, and his slight smile, as he ducks into the uber and drives away.

A few more things worth noting

Celine Song wrote this movie based off her own life. It’s also her feature film debut as a screenwriter, and her only directing credit. And as of a few days ago, Past Lives has been nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Original Screenplay and Best Motion Picture of the Year. An incredible accomplishment from a new talent in the film industry! I can’t wait to see what she does next.

I also love that I can recommend this film to anyone. While romance is a part of the story, Song is able to tell it compellingly without any sexual content or morally dubious behavior. In fact, the restraint is part of what makes the film so good, in my opinion. Nora and Hae Sung care for each other, may even love each other, while also being morally upright people. I appreciate this. And it is proof to me that you can write and produce a mature, artistic, and moving piece of art without sex scenes or nudity. What a win for cinema!

It’s also worth noting that Song tells this story with three main characters, a strong sense of place and setting, and dialogue. I love the simplicity of that. Not every big picture has to be Dune or Godzilla or anything from the MCU. A good script with a few good actors and beautiful cinematography makes for a great movie.

One more thing to point out: Past Lives is an A24 film. My friends and I joke: can A24 keep knocking it out of the park? I think the answer is yes. Just as following a director, writer, or actor can yield really worthwhile movie-watching results, following a good production studio can make a big difference too. A24 is a production company to keep an eye out for. Of course, you might not want to see everything they’ve produced, but here are several I’ve really liked over the years: Everything Everywhere All At Once, Priscilla, Marcelle the Shell with Shoes On, Minari, The Farewell, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, and Lady Bird — to name a few!

Leading Ladies with Heather Wright

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