Making a splash at the Sundance festival earlier this year is a directorial debut from up and coming Celine Song—and one that I must admit grabbed my attention. Here’s my take on the surprisingly poignant Past Lives.
Our premise is about a pair of young kids in South Korea who have mutual crushes on each other, even if ultimately it goes only as far as one date. After that, Na Young—changing her name to Nora—emigrates with her family to the United States, to pursue her dream as a writer. The boy, Hae-Sung, remains in Korea, going through the rites of passage there up to his military service—but growing up, he still doesn’t forget her. Twelve years on, Hae-Sung (Teo Yoo) stumbles on grown-up Nora (Greta Lee) online, and the two finally reconnect. The catch is, of course, their lives might not be able to intersect as much as they’d like, and Nora has relationships of her own in time in the US—it all comes down to whether both want to give what was past one more try…
There is a surprising amount to think on here despite the proceedings not necessarily being hugely complex—in an interconnected world, people still find it easy to be lonely, perhaps because of that. And most people have such things in their past to reminisce on, and wonder what could’ve been or reconnections, if they could someday get another chance, no matter the probability. I know I can relate to all that.
The title refers to a Korean take on Buddhism, where what happens in past lives cumulate to a destiny now—the question is whether the current life is in fact that destiny. Between all that, I must admit I did enjoy the visual sense of the film despite the low budget—there’s lots of nice shots of Seoul, New York, and things in between to set the scenes, and even the set detail is something I appreciate. By far the standout is Greta Lee, who keeps things both likeable and naturalistic—Teo Yoo initially seems a bit more stiff, but as we see, that’s something quite deliberate.
Eventually, of course, the two meet, with culture clashes emerging—but all I’ll say is that things are kept within reality. The last major scene is an example of everything that needs to be told being told with nothing but gesture and image, and how much closure it offers all boils down to how you interpret that aforementioned concept in the title itself.
While I don’t think I’d rate quite as high as others would, I certainly found it enjoyable and touching, and for a low-key production as this, I say check it out for sure if the premise sounds interesting. New starts are precious, closure is good, but sometimes it’s the connection in and of itself that makes things worth it…
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