I finally watched Past Lives (written and directed by Celine Song). I understand that I’m a little late to the party. The reason is, there are certain films that I know I need to watch with my brother because I’m sure we would both love them so much. I want those viewing experiences to be shared with him. The problem is, he lives on the other side of the country, and we don’t get to visit each other often. There’s a huge list of films that have come out over the years, which we haven’t seen yet because we’re waiting for opportunities to see them together. To confess, I’m a bit more stubborn about watching these films together than he is, so the ever-expanding “To Watch” list is mostly my fault.
He’s with me now, since he’s visiting during his Spring Break, and we made sure to watch this amazing love story, which we both adored and which I’m still trying to find the words to talk about.
One thing I’m thinking about in relation to this film is the idea of gaps. The opening title card puts a large space between the two words of the film’s title. Also, in the incredible scene in which the two lead characters, Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) finally meet in person for the first time in twenty-four years, the two characters are rarely in the same frame. When they embrace, they are, but otherwise, they stand apart; the camera pans across the gap between them as they talk instead of zooming further out to hold them in the same frame.
Song’s directorial decision in that scene is meant to convey the gap that exists between the lead characters, who—though they were childhood friends in Korea and later reconnected and kept in touch for a while through FaceTime during their mid-twenties—a sequence that draws attention to the difficulties of communicating in this medium through a montage of connection errors—have lived lives separate from each other for so long. They are half-strangers to each other. And, there are even more gaps within and among the characters that lie between their love, the existence of which I doubted at times but which I fully believed in by the conclusion.
Nora immigrated to Canada with her family at age twelve. I wonder if there is a gap in Nora due to her life in Seoul and her life in Canada and later the United States. Her name in childhood was Na Young, and she changed her name to Nora when she immigrated. When she and Hae Sung FaceTime during their twenties, she tells him that only he refers to her by her childhood name. Later, during one of the film’s climactic scenes, when Nora and Hae Sung talk at a bar while her husband Adam (John Magaro) sits beside her, she tells Hae Sung that the young girl he remembers from childhood is real but that she left her with Hae Sung. The person Hae Sung is talking to as an adult isn’t his childhood love; she’s someone else, but she’s still someone that has a connection to that girl.
The past is gone, but its traces live on in the present. The shared childhood experiences of Nora and Hae Sung create a gap between her and Adam, a gap that is unavoidable. In a deeply poignant scene, Adam and Nora lie in bed before sleep, and he tells her that he has noticed she sometimes speaks in Korean while asleep; this is something she hasn’t been aware of. Witnessing his wife doing this, Adam acknowledges that there is something within her he will never reach. This is technically true of all people; even with those closest to us, we will never be able to reach parts of their infinite depths. But, this truth is more pronounced for Adam, especially since this gap he feels between himself and Nora isn’t as great between her and Hae Sung. Hae Sung has witnessed Nora’s life in Seoul and is therefore closer to the part of Nora that Adam can never reach.
There is yet another gap for the characters, one between expectation and reality. Nora explains to Adam that the experience of seeing Hae Sung in person has been impactful. She talks about how she has developed an image of Hae Sung in her head after so many years, and that the man she has met and spent the day with obviously doesn’t match the mental invention. Just as the girl Hae Sung remembers is gone, the boy that Nora remembers isn’t the same as the man before her.
In addition, some of the gaps exist not because of fate, but because of the characters’ decisions. Nora ends the FaceTime meetings with Hae Sung because she worries that staying in touch with him will draw her back to Seoul and overturn her dreams of being a writer in New York.
I can keep going with my list. And, one way to interpret the film is that all these gaps between Nora and Hae Sung thwart their love. They don’t enter into a romantic relationship by the end of the film, and there is no hint that they will see each other again. Their exchanged goodbyes during their final moment together, when they’re waiting for Hae Sung’s Uber, carry the weight of finality.
However, I see the film as a testament to love’s endurance and survival.
While watching the film, I never doubted that Nora and Adam love each other. He honors and respects her wish to see Hae Sung. Adam tells Nora that he wonders if fate has brought them together, and if they might never have gotten married if circumstances were different. Nora pushes back by telling Adam he is the one she has chosen. Love is indeed a choice; this is an idea I’ve expressed agreement with in my discussion of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (which, in a cool coincidence, is brought up in a conversation between Nora and Hae Sung).
In contrast, I wondered during my viewing if Nora and Hae Sung really loved each other as adults, or if they were just chasing phantoms from the past. These doubts were dashed when, after Hae Sung leaves in his Uber, Nora walks back to her house holding back her tears before sobbing in Adam’s embrace.
In their twenties, Hae Sung chooses to reach out to Nora’s father on Facebook, and she chooses to respond to him. They choose to keep in touch for a while, and they choose to see each other in New York. The growth of their love is the result of choice.
Their love still exists across the gaps. In the moment I mentioned at the very beginning of this discussion, the characters’ first in-person meeting in twenty-four years, Hae Sung wonders aloud what he’s supposed to say or do in that moment. Thinking about that scene now, and thinking about all the scenes in which Nora and Hae Sung are at a loss for words or actions, I imagine that their hearts are reaching out to each other and talking in a language that only their hearts know, one that does not require words or actions.
I talked about the difficulty and the power of acting in close-ups in my discussion of Fences. As I commended the amazing actors in Fences, I commend Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, and John Magaro. Song films a few conversations between characters in alternating close-ups, trusting that the actors can step up to the challenge. They deliver. Scenes in particular that I remember include Nora expressing her wish to break FaceTime contact with Hae Sung, Adam asking Nora about her reunion with Hae Sung in New York, and the conversation between Hae Sung and Nora at the bar. The actor’s faces are so full of feeling and convey the depths of emotions that the characters are not expressing in words. It’s as if their hearts are speaking to each other and to the audience. I applaud the actors’ moving performances and Song’s expert direction. Past Lives is among the most naturalistic films I’ve seen recently, in the sense that the events seem closer to life than to a movie’s plot. It’s also among the most soulful movies I’ve seen due to its depth of feeling.
Nora and Hae Sung part ways at the film’s end. But, the love they have felt for each other has been real, and it has survived across all the gaps in time, location, and experience between them. The fact that this love doesn’t lead to anything concrete doesn’t matter to me as much as its very existence does. Love is a minor miracle; the fact that someone can pull the depths of our beings toward them and affect us so much, along with the fact that we are willing to submit this much of ourselves to them, is awe-inspiring. I cannot think of anything else in this world that has the power to feel limitless, both when we give it and when we receive it.
The fact that Nora’s and Hae Sung’s love exists despite the differing courses of their lives is enough. The ending is therefore not sad, in my mind; it is bittersweet, as much of the greatest aspects of life are.
I cannot wait to watch this film again.