‘Past Lives Review: Playwright Celine Song Makes A Stunning Move Into Features With This DecadesSpanning Romantic Drama
© Courtesy of The Hollywood ReporterThree people are sitting in a bar, a man and a woman engaged in a lively conversation that we can't hear, while the other guy looks bored, sad or scared, quietly sipping a drink. On the other side of the room, the voices of two invisible people speculate who these three strangers are, the writers of the game often play mainly on the body language and environment of the New York room. Early morning bar.
A hint to ask is that the film will feature the faces behind these voices and that they may also be the lead actors. But as the camera closes in on a woman in front of the bar, lost in thought as she seems to be transported away, it becomes clear that she will be at the center of the story.
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This opening scene in Pet Lives , playwright Celine Song's confident feature debut, is a clever prologue that piques our interest without hinting at the poignant emotion it evokes as we return to the same scene, this time at our shooting session, at the end of the film. film. The movie. . This follows the establishment of the identities of the three men and their tangled connections.
The main characters are involved in a melancholic triangle, but it is not an ordinary dramatic romantic triangle. There are high romantic stretches that will make you blink, but it strictly avoids melodrama.
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In keeping with Song's themes, the film will likely touch your own life as well, prompting you to think about intersections and how another path might have changed who you are.
In terms of the complexity of the film, it can be said that it is a meditation-investigation about love and fate; wonderful regrets about life's choices; I wonder where the various decisions have led us; and to accept the hole that this apparent parallel existence has left in our lives, even when we firmly believe that the decisions we have made are the right ones. Its effects will probably follow you for days.
Song's elegant screenplay is structured as a triptych that gracefully traverses three periods spanning more than two decades on two continents. The story begins 24 years before the scene in the bar and shifts to South Korea, where 12-year-old Nora (Sung Ah Moon), then named Na Young, is preparing to immigrate to Canada with her family. In her studies, she competes with her best friend at school Hae Sung (Sung Min Im) and cries when she loses first place in a class assignment.
In a sweet scene later in the film, Nora's mother (Ji Hye Yoon) takes the two children to the park on a date to make memories that will stay with her daughter as she adjusts to her new life in America. of North used. . One shot in particular will continue to resonate, in which Hae Sung looks out the car window on the way home after Nora falls asleep on his shoulder. There is an understated sadness in his brief farewell to his childhood sweetheart, though he seems almost devoid of emotion after initially envisioning a future as an award-winning author.
Twelve years later, Nora (now played by Greta Lee) has moved from Toronto to New York to study drama. Interested in what happened to the people she knew in Seoul, she starts searching the internet and tries to remember the name of the boy who was her best friend in the beginning. When he finds Hae Sung (Tea Yoo), he discovers that he has also been looking for her on social media. The two begin communicating online, Nora's rusty Korea showing how much their cultural identities have changed.
When they switch to Skype calls, the initial shyness is quickly replaced by warmth and directness, though Nora's quiet, Americanized nature contrasts sharply with the more reserved manner of modern engineering student Hae Sung. The conversations escalate until they start talking about a physical date. But for various reasons, Nora prepares to retire and move to a writer's colony in Montauk, while traveling to China to learn Mandarin.
In Montauk, Nora meets another writer, Arthur (John Magara). Half drunk on moonlight and summer, he talks to her about the Korean concept of yin-yung, fate and relationships, especially the bonds between two people created by multiple connections in past lives. Then he laughs, "That's what Koreans say to seduce someone."
Another twelve years pass. Nora, who has been married to Arthur for seven years, suddenly learns from Hae Sung that he is finally coming to New York for the holidays. When they first meet, almost at the park, Hae Sung is still smiling but remains stiff and hesitant until Nora breaks the ice by continuing to hug. It's a moment filled with unspoken feelings that is almost emotionally overwhelming. Pretty much all they can say at first is "This!" But on a walk down the river in Brooklyn, they begin to close the gaps and return to their former closeness.
There are several ways a not-so-subtle writer-director could imagine this encounter: through a meeting of kindred spirits, or a woman faced with a difficult, life-changing decision, or two men competing for a woman's love. . But this is not Song's film. His choice is unexpected until the wonderful final segment, which features the opening scene of Nora, Hae Sung and Arthur in a bar.
The director's background as a playwright is evident in his impeccable craft of stagecraft and dialogue, not to mention his personal commitment, as the script is drawn from a shocking experience he discovered between his husband and his childhood sweetheart in a bar in New York. .
A standout scene is when Nora tells Arthur about her first date with Hae Sung when he returns to her apartment that evening. "It's very Korean," he says in a tone that suggests an amused ambivalence and respect for that cultural heritage. She doesn't see herself as Korean when she meets Hae Sung, "but somewhat more Korean."
The cinematography by Shabier Kirchner (who directed Steve McQueen's Little Ax films) has a keen sense of how places, cities, architecture and cultural mores shape and transform people over time. confidential
A clever plot twist momentarily undermines Arthur's emotionality: he has published a novel called Boner and spends his time alone playing video games as a child. But in Magar's quietly painful performance, we see the internal struggle between jealousy and the growing acceptance of Nora's need to reflect and understand a forgotten part of her past. One of the most outstanding features of Song's film is the remarkable fairness and generosity with which he treats the three main characters, despite Nora being the center of attention.
During their conversation in bed, Arthur almost learns of the situation and sees that Hae Sung will reappear where he will be "an evil white American who will stand in the way of their destiny". When she tells him that she speaks Korean in her sleep, her sense of empathy is evident despite learning the language. "There's a whole place inside of you that I can't get into," he tells her, admitting that he wonders if he'll ever get enough of his life.
When Nora's husband and the resurrected spirit from his past finally meet on their last night away, Arthur fears the apparent connection between his wife and Hae Seong. But even admitting that Hae Sung, who loves Arthur, was hurt. In a beautiful moment when the two men have some time alone, Hae Sung dares that Ying-Yun - a theme that runs through the film - applies to him too. The emotional force required for Hae Sung to finally open up to Nori and express his feelings is immense, and yet Sung and his actors carry the scene with unerring poise. The same goes for the closing track, which is both heartfelt and soothing.
The performance of the three leads could not have been better. It's a new role for Yu, with plenty of empathy, from the 12-year-old boy who stands silently by a crying Nora to the confident but hopeful young college student who gets drunk on soju with his friends. class, but he doesn't care. living at home with parents. In the last part he will become an adult, with the passage of time it will become even more difficult to act and express the feelings that he has felt throughout his life. The character development and Yu's ability to convey what is often only through the eyes or body language is touching.
It's nice to see Magaro, so great in Kelly Reichardt 's First Cow and Emergence, in a romantic role. He has the least screen time of the three leads, but he doesn't easily find the balance between humor and pathos in his character. Magaro makes the role deep and complex because of the gentleness of Arthur's demeanor and the obvious pain of maintaining a calm and mature understanding amid events that could potentially break him and leave him with just a hint of resentment.
What about the incredible depth of Lee's performance? It lets you inhabit Nora's mind for as long as it lasts, with the heroine's mind trying to overcome her emotions until you're separated by a moment of pure redemption.
So much is happening behind Lee's eyes that you notice Nora drifting away, dazzled by the trappings of another life and troubled by the awareness of this impasse that always occupies the void within her. She is a modern woman who knows exactly who she is, ambitious and self-possessed, and her melancholy as she succumbs to a sense of existential longing is deeply moving.
In this brilliant debut, Song proved to be the perfect director. He displays a visual command that matches his emotional and philosophical understanding, a wonderfully restrained wit, and a commitment to tone that never fails. . The fluidity with which the writer-director moves between distant eras and locations is truly impressive, aided undeniably by Keith Frazee's fluent editing.
For a film where characters dance around their feelings without directly addressing them, Past Lives speaks volumes. It's only January, but there's no doubt that this will be one of the best movies of the year.
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