Past Lives: Holding on to what's left at home
Past Lives: Holding on to what’s left at home
I’m not an immigrant, but I do know what it feels like to be far away from home. And Celine Song’s Past Lives poignantly expresses that in this ever-present eternal yearning for all the things that were left behind and forgotten. Nora and Hae Sung were never meant for each other. Nora was never in love with Hae Sung, she was in love with the idea of home, of South Korea in him. She’s afraid that her roots, her Korean-past life will gradually fade away into nothingness, so she clings onto him. Hae Sung was never in love with Nora, he was in love with the thought of a free-spirited, carefree life he once had with her—and he’s afraid now that he’s an adult, all of those memories will vanish into oblivion, so he clings onto her, onto their childhood desires.
What’s wonderful about Past Lives is how delicate Song tells the story. She never pushes the relationships of these characters onto the audience. She lets it blossom into genuine moments of profound intimacy. With an inviting visual language that resonates to its themes of chances and fate. It reminisces the days gone by, not in a way that brings admiration to it but more so with empathy and acceptance, carefully encouraging us to do the same—embracing the change.
The more that I sit with this movie, the more I admire it for its banality, its mundanity, and how it navigates through the cross-cultural complexities of living as an adult, most especially as an immigrant, through the type of love story that is classic and enduring. There are these little nuances about Nora struggling with her cultural identity, and it is handled in such a way that feels so remarkably aware and open.
This is not just a tale of two lovers, but also an exploration of a bond, a friendship, that forms their identities. In Past Lives, there is a dichotomy formed between the facets and complexities of relationships in the contemporary times and something that is much more spiritual and metaphysical, something that revolves around the strings of fate, through the threads of providence, binding people through every lifetime— the past lives that they once had, the fragile souls that reunite and question the distance and time that have changed so many aspects of their lives, their youth that is eventually fading, only glimpses of memory springing from fleeting moments of movement, of time and distance. Time flies, but the yearning stays, the yearning for something familiar, the yearning for what once felt like home.
There’s just something so beautiful and emphatic about Past Lives. An eloquently defined journey about relationships, immigration, and missed connections. So many scenes feel pulled from Song’s memories, filled with sadness, so subtle yet so resonating. So many pieces of conversations with a tinge of regret yet so touching. Its visuals are filled with warmth, its characters all so soulful. A film that is incredibly humanistic. A world where both the past and present are just as equally uncertain. There’s a delicate balance between its comforting closure and the crushing mourning for the past life. It takes you on an exploration of personal growth and also, acceptance, it asks you profound questions about the things that could’ve been, about what it means to belong, about one’s cultural identity.
In-yun, it means providence, fate, destiny, about the relationship between people over the course of their lives. That moment you walk by the street and you accidentally brush against someone at a specific place and time. A connection, perhaps in your past lives.
Past Lives arrives at local theaters this August 30, 2023
