First Published via HUB Magazine when I was Editor-in-Chief.

Date Published: 6th October 2023.

As the credits roll, a bond is formed with everyone in the cinema as we all cry in disbelief at the ending and that’s when the laughter fights its way out as we cry. 

Past Lives (2023) is Celine Song’s directorial debut and follows two childhood friends Nora (played by Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (played by Teo Yoo). The story follows three main timelines that intersect throughout the film. The first timeline is follows Nora as her parents plan to migrate to Toronto, Canada and she is struggling with the emotions of leaving behind her childhood friend Hae Sung. In the second timeline, she has moved from Toronto to New York City and is twelve years later. She reaches out to Hae Sung and as they grow closer over the internet, she is struggling with the version of herself as a child and the version as a woman living on her own. The third timeline is twenty years later from when she left Korea and Hae Sung finally comes to the United States. 

The beauty and the idea of the film comes from in-yun which is a Korean concept that connections in this life stem from previous connections made in former lives. For example, the man you brush past on the train in this life is just a stranger but in the next life he could be more. Though this idea is introduced in the second act is played off as a means of seduction, in the final act it is brought full circle and ever so heartbreaking. 

There are certain cinematographic choices that really make the film for me.

The first act ends with Nora and Hae Sung separating by Nora going up the stairs to her house and Hae Sung going up the hill, this moment is mirrored in the third act when Hae Sung gets in the Uber and Nora goes up the stairs to her house with her husband sitting outside. Where in the first act neither child can fully express how they feel, in the last act Hae Sung gets his closure and Nora cries into her husband’s arms at the bottom of the stairs. This relates to the idea of past lives, that in this life Nora and Hae Sung just miss each other and cross over one another to different people. A different metaphor could also be extracted from Parasite (2019) directed by Bong Joon-ho in which the stairs are a metaphor for climbing up the social ladder. Hae Sung comments in the third act that he is unmarried as he is considered below the status of his current girlfriend and therefore, she will not marry him.

Another cinematographic choice that stood out for me is in the final act at the bar. This scene is referenced at the very beginning of the film as two outsiders discuss how the three people know each other (Nora, Hae Sung and Nora’s Husband). At first the scene is introduced as a wide shot to make the husband feel isolated from the conservation as the majority of it is in Korean, however, it changes to more intimate close-up shots. The cinematographer very purposely uses when the husband is and is not in frame.  Though most of the conservation is in Korean, by the general tone when the camera switches to the husband we can see he both understands that his wife needs to see Hae Sung and he acts maturely towards the situation.

Throughout the film, the two languages are used as barriers for Nora’s husband and for Hae Sung as they cannot express things clearly to one another. It can also be seen as them seeing different sides of Nora this can be expressed from Hae Sung’s line ‘you are someone who leaves but for your husband, you are someone who stays’. This moment shows when Hae Sung sees Nora as both the woman she has grown up to be and the girl he knew back in Korea. This idea of separation is also expressed through the husband explaining that Nora dreams and speaks in her sleep in Korean so there’s a part of herself he cannot reach or understand. This moment of finally understanding her could be represented when he’s waiting at the bottom of the stairs for her. 

The film overall is a slow burner as the audience becomes more emotionally engaged towards Nora and Hae with the last act of the film being a masterpiece. Personally, I would like a film to get better slowly than decline in quality especially in a world that’s growing more impatient with films. I found the slow building refreshing as it was important to build characters.  

Joon-ho, Bong. Parasite. Barunson E&A, 2019.

Song, Celine. Past Lives. A24, 2023.