If you’re pining for a little of the magic captured by Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise trilogy, the acclaimed debut film from Korean Canadian filmmaker Celine Song has got you covered. Get ready to get wistful, as the award-winning Past Lives is now playing in Australian cinemas.
A romance but not a love story (well, not really) Past Lives follows Na “Nora” Young (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), whose childhood romance is cut short when the latter and her family emigrate to Canada (hence the Anglicised name “Nora”). When they reconnect 12 years later via the internet, Hae has just finished national military service, while Nora is living in New York City, trying to launch her writing career.
And when they connect 12 years after that, Nora is a successful playwright married to novelist Arthur (John Magaro). When Hae announces he’s taking a vacation in NYC, Nora wonders if he wants to rekindle their relationship, and what that might mean for her marriage.
Which sounds like a fairly rote romantic drama, but Song is more interested in less obvious and tangible themes. Past Lives deals with notions of melancholy, regret, and paths not taken, but also the ephemeral but potent connections we as humans forge with each other when our paths in life cross over, however fleetingly. She builds her story around the Korean philosophical concept of in-yeon. This is the idea that everyone we’ve ever met, we’ve met before in a past life, the chain of interaction and meaning spanning countless incarnations.
Featuring superb performances from the three principal actors and a script that refuses to bow to dramatic convention, Past Lives is a stunningly effective and moving film, the kind of adult-focused drama that’s all too rare on our screens these days. Make sure you don’t miss this one and be sure to take an old friend—you’ll have a lot to talk about after.
