Film review: ‘PAST LIVES’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
The restrained and low-key romantic drama, Past Lives will feel to some like it’s saying little and doing so at a glacial pace while many will find it a subtly seductive film with a powerful emotional undercurrent.
Past Lives tracks the 36-year relationship of South Korean woman Na Young (Greta Lee) and male friend Hae Sung (Teo Yoo). They spend much of their childhood together but are unexpectedly separated at 12-years-old when Na Young’s family move from Seoul to Toronto. With the move occurring a decade before social media and with Na Young later relocating to New York and calling herself Nora, they lose contact. Still feeling a connection, they tentatively make overtures through Facebook and Skype. Clearly desperate to reignite something between him and Nora, Hae Sung travels to the US but with Nora now a playwright and having married American man, Arthur (John Magaro) in the intervening years, it’s an awkward reunion.
This is a thoughtful, sensitive, almost meditative film that builds tension in very small increments across its running time. Throughout, there’s a mounting sense of someone holding back an emotional outpouring which allows the film to hold the audience in its grip through some seemingly slow patches.
The film explores themes of fate, life choices and the unexpected implications of chance outcomes, a little like Sliding Doors but without any of the quasi-magical elements. The film also suggests the inadequacy of contemporary relationships played out across social media as opposed to the raw honesty of face-to-face connection. There’s also an interesting theme about the nature of identity and the way time and place impact on this. Nora, in particular, navigates a dual national identity as both American and Korean, something that alternately and tellingly isolates either Hae Sung or Arthur when the three are together.
This is the first feature film for writer/director Celine Song who is predominantly a playwright but interestingly worked on the TV adaptation of fantasy book series The Wheel of Time. Past Lives is apparently semi-autobiographical as Song also met up with a childhood friend many years after they parted. She gives the film a gentle, sophisticated and very matter-of-fact tone and with cinematographer Shabier Kirchner, an unadorned but beautiful look that often appears to have been shot with natural light. There’s also terrific use of locations in New York and Seoul. The City of New York couldn’t hope for a better tourist ad than the scenes where Nora shows Hae Sung around the Big Apple.
With sparse dialogue in their scenes together, Greta Lee and Teo Yoo do a wonderful job of conveying the slightly confused emotions and sense of longing between them while John Magaro effectively displays both a touch of jealousy and empathy for what the two are apparently feeling.
This is one of those films that feels a little inconsequential while viewing it but its layered themes and potent images remain with us long after we leave the cinema. Also, be sure to stay for the closing credits as they feature one of the year’s best songs, ‘Quiet Eyes’ by Sharon Van Etten.
Nick’s rating: ***1/2
Genre: Drama/ Romance.
Classification: M.
Director(s): Celine Song.
Release date: 31st Aug 2023.
Running time: 106 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.