π RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS
π RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS
Celine Song (director), Past Lives, 2023. 106 min.
Life is a sea, a kaleidoscopic cornucopia of experiences with a myriad of people. We start in shallow waters of first loves, childhood sweethearts and all the pure untainted conceptions of love. But soon we plunge into dangerous watersβformative years of trying love, of love which is misplaced and ever-changing; our wants, needs and selves in this constant state of flux. Then one day we dip one last time and finally find a love so deafening and defining, a love we choose to share for the rest of this journey, nestled warmly in this home we have decided to build with a special someone. Yet with this startling sense of stability and normality, our minds are left to linger on all the could haves and could-bes, all the maybes and chances lost to the winds of time. Sometimes we ponder on the naive love from our childhood, a love which lingers, plastered in the back of our minds.
Celine Songβs Past Lives tells the story of Nora (Greta Lee), who, as a 12-year-old, emigrates with her parents to Canada, leaving behind her first love Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) in Seoul. The film charts the ebb and flow of their relationshipβreconnecting through video calls after an absence of 12 years, and again 12 years later, and finally in real life in New York. However, by now Nora is happily married to an American, Arthur (John Magaro).
The film perfectly encapsulates the lingering memory of a childhood sweetheart and interrogates the notions of love, time and unfounded possibilities. It is a powerful tale of the juxtaposition between the sentimentalism of past desires and the contentment with decisions made in current reality seen through Nora, who wrestles with an inexplicable blend of feelings towards both her first love Hae Sung and husband Arthur. This coalescence of feelings culminates in a heart-wrenching story of the acceptance that life brings you and leaves you exactly where you need to be and that we have to own our choices.
What Song captures so astutely in her direction is the ability to elucidate the unsaid as she plays on a common trope in Asian cultureβthe inability to fully articulate oneβs complex emotions. The powerful use of a gaze, the weighted melancholy of silences, and the gritted restraint of unuttered words. Her characters never just speak their emotions but instead embody them in their entirety through facial expressions and body language captured so well in purposeful close-ups. Nora, Hae Sung and Arthur are complex and distinct beings whom we are simply incapable of hating or pinning any blame on. After all, they are but victims of a tragic incomprehensible reality they inhabit. Paired with a ruminating score which gently shimmers with nostalgia and yearning, Song heightens the duality between the charactersβ exterior calm appearances and turbulent interior worlds.
A scene I constantly think about is when Arthur hazily admits to Nora that she βdreams in a language he canβt understandβ. Moments like these capture the poeticism of the script as the film attempts to reach into the interior world of the characters who grapple with their sense of self. Conversations often segue into attempts to question and articulate their place in their own lives as well as in the lives of those around them.
The striking image of a young Nora climbing up the vibrantly painted steps
Distance and Time are two themes Song explores in Past Lives through visual motifs of movement and stillness. Shots of trains, ships and characters wandering around the city reflect the ever-changing flow through the journey of life. While symmetrically framed still shots capture this dichotomy between characters and the gulf of time they have lost and can never truly traverse. Throughout the film, Song seems to suggest a sense of futility in Nora and Hae Sungβs relationship. The film starts with the striking image of a young Nora climbing up the vibrantly painted steps as a desolate Hae Sung clambers after her, and ends with a similar image of distance as Nora and Hae Sung gaze silently, awaiting Hae Sungβs cab and thus departure.Β
Nora and Hae Sung gaze silently
Song rejects the βhappy ever afterβ trope ever so present in conventional Asian romance films. Instead, she presents us with a tender, sobering yet hopeful ode to time, memory and love. Past Lives is a reminder that love is an active choice we make and sometimes in love, wistful dreaming has to give way to practical reality. Perhaps in another life, 8,000 layers of inyeon would finally triumph and pull two lives together, bound by fate.
How to cite:Β Ng, Elliot. βThe Beauty of the Unsaid: Celine Songβs Past Lives.βΒ Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 5 Jan. 2024,Β chajournal.blog/2024/01/05/past-lives.
Elliot Ng is an emerging Asian writer from Singapore. He is a lover of the arts and self-proclaimed romanticiser of life. Focussing on identity and culture, his works have been published in Ricepaper Magazine and Porch Litmag. His works are often borne out of raw 3 am thoughts and sudden existential epiphanies on the toilet seat. When not writing, you can find him nestled in a cafΓ© with a book and a cup of coffee or in a thrift store rummaging through piles of clothes. You can reach him on Instagram at @couchedellephant.
Cha 