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Movie of the Month: Past Lives (Patreon)

Published:
2024-08-28 21:15:15
Edited:
2024-09-10 00:52:16
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Movie night! Cry time!

Witness this heart wrenching 106 minutes about intimacy and soulmates and diverging lifepaths and long distance international Zoom love.

Watch this film tonight or anytime this week and report back for emotional support.

I'll be watching tonight and posting some thoughts/feelings below, which I will also do for the Album of the Month in the future so as to not crowd the main post and to LOWER myself to YOUR level.

Some things to write about to guide your reflection so it's a little more focused than a Letterboxd review with a star rating:

An important scene

An unimportant scene

The thing you most enjoyed experiencing and the thing you least enjoyed experiencing (not the same as best/worst)

Alternatively, write literally anything else, but it's always more compelling to write about something specific than trying to broadly cover everything without digging into anything very deeply.

iiiiiiiii am looking forward to experiencing this movie again and I'm looking forward to the Zoom Town Hall on Aug 31 at 4:30pm EST.

See ya downstairs with answering my own 3 prompts once this movie's over (i'm starting it now)

x

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Files

Comments

Onaje Doyle

Everything about this movie asks if I'm ready to be hurt

sepha

Oh my god, I'm sorry to kill the mood immediately, but I have such strong feelings about this movie. Feelings of hatred. I was really excited for this movie to upend my feelings and send me into a thought spiral, or at the very least, make me cry really hard, but none of that happened. And initially, I was like okay, fine, maybe this movie just isn't for me, but I can try to think on it some more and try to see the artistic intent? But the more I thought about that, the madder I got, because what I was finding was either incoherent or poorly executed. But let me speak on both sentiment and mechanics when I say that this movie was so fucking flat. Bland. Absolutely uninteresting in every way. I'm speaking as someone whose soul does feel split in two by different cultures, so I was supposed to be the target audience. Or...was I? (I was not -_-) I absolutely hated Nora. For someone whose soul is supposed to be split between two different cultures, she's extremely opaque as a character and her choices and decisions are never questioned. And the choices are extremely questionable! First of all, the whole idea that "Korea is too small for her" is incoherent because Korea's entertainment industry and cultural influence internationally is huge. Second of all, her pursuit of "artistic greatness" is just a pursuit of...awards? Accolades? It's a totally joyless approach to art and it goes unquestioned throughout. Like if it were framed as Nora chasing the next big thing in order to ignore her grief, that would be interesting, but it isn't—it's just portrayed as a sign of her success. Third. This isn't related to Nora this time. The dialogue is way, way too on-the-nose. It made it so hard to buy into any of the chemistry, especially when they might as well have been talking about the weather over those video calls. Fourth, the premise itself. I understand on a general level why Nora would remember Hae-Sung (even though she literally forgets), but not why Hae-Sung would remember Nora. He's not the one whose soul is split in two. I could list more reasons why this movie doesn't make sense (maybe I will later; it's hard to summarize almost every minute of the movie -_-), but I have to drive in a minute so I'm stopping. These all might seem like disparate issues, but I personally see a connection. So far I have been trying to avoid making assumptions about the artist when experiencing the art, but I'm going to stop now. I think that if a piece of art is successful, the artist has the ability to obfuscate their own intentions and biases and mess if they desire to do so. I don't think Past Lives succeeded as a piece of art, and I don't think the writer/director was able to obfuscate her own messy self when making this. For someone whose experience should resonate with this movie, it just didn't feel rich or coherent enough for me to believe it was written with honesty. To me the movie reads as her trying to convince herself that her life choices—her career, her partner, and crucially her decision to let go of Korea (in a sense)—were justified...which I suppose would be fine, in theory, but it doesn't do a very good job at that, either. Even in-universe, when Arthur asks Nora how he makes her world bigger, she answers vaguely and sounds like she's lying the whole time. Like they couldn't come up with one concrete example? Come on. It's extremely cringe. Delusional and navel-gazey. Anyway, does anyone else feel the same? I feel like I'm going crazy, seeing it praised everywhere. My friends believe me when I hate on it though, so none of them want to watch this movie and commiserate with me :( (Oh but I only care about your opinion if your soul is also split in two like mine. But if it is, pleasee respond, even if you disagree.)

Rohanna Hadlow

In with possibly a little controversial take because I didn't like this movie, despite going into it fully expecting it to be exactly my jam. Missed connections, falling to nostalgia vs looking forward, painful reminders of first love, these are very attractive themes to me. I'm going to keep with the structure and hopefully figure out some reasoning behind my thoughts on the way. (Disclaimer: I have not watched this movie since I saw it in cinemas a few months ago, but I have thought about it a lot since then and sought many other opinions on it. I actually had such a dull time with it that I have no desire to re-watch it.) Important scene: bitch the ending, of course. Nora definitively choosing her current life and finally cracking, heartbroken by the loss of a life that could have been. Finally seeing how much of an emotional toll this has all taken on her and leaning into Arthur to provide emotional support was very affecting. Unimportant scene: the zoom calls. This was when the film really fell apart for me. I feel like the rekindling over zoom was supposed to be an opportunity to show the leads' chemistry and get us somewhat invested in their relationship, but it did the exact opposite for me. It was so incredibly awkward, and stilted, and not in a cute way. It felt like how I would act with someone I run into who I don't want to talk to. It might have been more effective for me if Hae Sung had just turned up in New York in the middle of Nora's new life, and there had never been the possibility of them being together more on their own terms. Again I suppose this section existed to show that the relationship between Nora and Hae Sung is actually Nora's relationship with Korea, a place where she doesn't belong any more, but in that case it's almost like any plot tension was resolved in the middle of the movie; it was never going to work out. Most enjoyed experiencing: the relationship dynamic between Nora and Arthur, especially the anxiety and insecurity Arthur has to grapple with when faced with the prospect of a romantic rival. Some of the most emotional parts of the movie for me were discussions between Arthur and Nora, especially their honesty and trust with each other. The scene in the restaurant with Arthur, Nora and Hae Sung was also the most I actually believed in Nora and Hae Sung's love for each other and the layers of inyeon between all of them, including Hae Sung and Arthur. The way Arthur tries to be supportive and understand his wife through a situation that is clearly incredibly difficult for him without making it about himself was endearing to me. I also enjoyed Nora and a character and Greta Lee's performance. She's a complex and determined person and I liked watching her question herself and then come to conclusions on her own. The way she operates as an independent being even within her relationships was something I deeply connected to. Least enjoyed experiencing: being asked to believe in the connection between Nora and Hae Sung. Look I've kind of already covered this but I just don't see anything between these two people. They have zero chemistry, every scene of them together was painful and boring for me, even when they were children. At one point she talks about how Korean he is but I don't know that that covers the extent to which they don't seem to connect. I also didn't like the film stylistically, I found it very visually flat. It's interesting that Celine Song's husband Justin Kuritzkes wrote Challengers, an arguably shallower film which is one of my favourite films of the year. Perhaps it just comes down to a matter of taste, where I like my love triangles with more overt tension. I don't think so though, I was so ready for this film to totally engulf me and it just didn't except for a brief moment in the final scene. The girl next to me in the cinema was sobbing hysterically for maybe the last third of the movie and I wanted to be her so bad. I just couldn't make myself believe that Nora cared either about Hae Sung or about being uprooted and transplanted in a new country as a child. This is pretty far from my experience, I still live fairly close to the town where I grew up (in Australia) and have never had the desire to immigrate. I think film is supposed to translate experiences and feeling so they can be felt by others, so I will always be disappointed that it didn't work for me, especially when I can see what it was supposed to feel like through frosted, soundproof glass.

Chandler Sterling

"Hey. Bye." (Hae Sung every 12 years of his life) I really enjoy how inevitable everything in this movie feels. The relationship between Na Young/Nora Moon (I'll call her Nora here on out since she seems to prefer that name) and Hae Sung is like a constant cycle of connecting, losing themselves in each other, and watching as Nora's life pulls her away every 12 years. First she immigrates, then she cuts off their Facetime chats to focus on her career, then she is a bit too happily married and fulfilled in her work for a new relationship. I think the cycle only ends because that last time it's Hae Sung who leaves. He has finally come to understand that what drives them apart isn't bad luck, it's their nature. Like he said, she was always someone who leaves, even though he loved that about her. The conflict in this movie really is just the universe. It would be so easy to make Nora, Arthur, and Hae Sung into a love triangle, but Hae Sung and Arthur are actively nice to each other even if they know how awkward the whole thing is. It's sweet how much the 3 of them get along in person. Arthur just gets that those two keep finding themselves pulled into each other's orbits before being flung right back out into opposite ends of space. He embraces the chance to practice his Korean and learn a little about Nora's childhood. I really liked how this feeling that the world is working against them is weaponized before being debunked at the end of the movie. My favorite example of this weaponization is the day in the park that they spend together in New York. Almost every single extra around them is a couple on a date. It cranks up the yearning to 11 to see everyone else be a happy couple while Nora Moon tells Hae Sung that he should get married to his girlfriend already. The conversation at the restaurant bar takes all that yearning and lets it down gently. Nora is not leaving her husband at the end of this movie. When they're together, they aren't themselves, they're 12 year-old schoolkids again. They project onto themselves a nostalgia for childhood. It would be like someone who grew up in the 80s trying to date Stranger Things. It probably wouldn't work out. They're yearning for the idea of someone else, and even if they got together, they would feel trapped by that version of themselves in someone else's mind. I was especially surprised that the movie didn't consider this a bad thing. Nora doesn't go off on Hae Sung for loving a version of her that hasn't existed for 24 years, she just tells him that she left that part of her with him. His care for that person keeps a part of her alive even if she can't always take the time to nurture it for herself. The wedge that drove them apart didn't cut cleanly, and now each of them carries the part of the other wherever they go. It's like Surtr in God of War: Ragnarök if you're into that sort of thing. What makes their relationship so beautiful in my eyes is the way that each of them seems to have something that the other person needs. For Nora Moon, Hae Sung represents stability and her home. He says himself that he is just an average guy with an average job. She tells Arthur that he is just so Korean in a way that no one else she knows really is. For Hae Sung, Nora Moon represents change and excitement. She's the artist who left their hometown to chase after her dreams. Their competition in school led him to aim higher until he finally got the better grade. In the terms of the Metaphysics of Quality, Hae Sung is Static, and Nora Moon is Dynamic. He helps her hold on to old things, and she shows him new things to hold onto. Their presence in each other's lives helps them to be feel more complete, so it hurts to see that they can't stay together. The end of the movie wasn't as sad for me as I expected because, in my opinion, it was showing that they finally understand how to nurture the part that was missing. Nora finally cries in New York, and now that she has allowed this older part of her life in, Arthur is able to understand and comfort her. Hae Sung sits in peace during the cab ride back home. He is content being alone with himself for one of the only times in the movie. Their time together has made them more whole, even if it can never last. P.S. I really like the way that the movie sets the mood of some of the locations by cutting between static shots of random elements in the environment. It reminds me a lot of the video game Season: A Letter to the Future in that way. Both have subdued strings and piano chords over seemingly random shots of stuff in the area. It helps you build a better picture of this place in your head by letting you naturally sit with a few tiny details and infer the connection between all these things. For me, it made the world seem more alive. Also, if it wasn't clear, I liked this movie! I will watch it again in 12 years, reflect on how far we've both come, and then drive away again to mournful music as yet another piece of my past is inevitably relegated back to the long-term memory abyss.

Uncle Jam

By coincidence, I watched In The Mood For Love for the third time last night for my movie club in my screenwriting discord. It's a movie I like a lot, but I don't quite love it. Blasphemy, I know. But I think with this watch, I finally figured out why that's the case. (Shout out to therapy.) I have petty shit I can throw at it, but it's more of a gut thing with me. I'm a person. I've longed for people I can't have. I have a "one that got away" or two. I know what those feelings are, and I don't think In the Mood for Love's interpretation of those feelings fully click for me. So much of ITMFL is about the carnal side of those feelings. The romance. The sex. The yearning. But when I think about those people and those situations I was in, I mostly think about the heartbreak and the pain. Granted I'm not Tony Leung (who is?) and in one or two of the scenarios I'm thinking about, the attraction was probably only one way. However, when Chow gets his heart broken, he smokes cigarettes and broods. When I get my heart broken, I crawl into bed and I don't eat or sleep for a few days. I know I'm being reductive, and I know some of what I mentioned is the point. Among other things, it's a movie about repressed people in a repressed time. Moreover, this isn't to say that there isn't pain in ITMFL. There absolutely is. But, to me, it's muted. At least when compared to the other side of the coin, and that makes it hard for me to relate to. Past Lives, on the other hand, portrays that pain in a way I have an easier time recognizing. Granted, a lot of that is the way the movie uses the internet. I'd go so far as to say that I think Past Lives is quietly one of the best movies that's been made about the internet so far in that it shows how people can use it to dive deep into their nostalgia and the lives of those people they can't forget and tear their own heart into pieces over and over again. I'm commenting on a CJ the X's Patreon post, so CLEARLY I CAN RELATE!!!! But I think it's a little more than that. In ITMFL, those two characters make an active choice not to act on their feelings for each other. In Past Lives, it's not really presented as a choice in the first place. There's no "do this or do that" or a "right" or "wrong." Nora/Na Young bucks against the culture she's from, but she doesn't reject or condemn it either. Hae Sung embraces that culture more fully (and not just Korean culture but corporate culture as well), and that culture provides a sense of meaning, but I think he's aware of the fact that there's also something to be found outside of it as well. I don't know. You become who you are and then you do shit. Said shit might include a lover, but that's only a small part of the totality of not only the aforementioned shit, but you in general. Mora and Hae Sung probably love each other. But they're also very different people defined by their wants and the people around them. I think Past Lives works because it acknowledges that. Nora and Hae Sung don't exist so you can watch them make pretty babies. They just exist. (Yes, I know they're fiction, shut up.)

simon_meowell

I really enjoyed this overall. It was certainly different than what I was expecting (from the trailer maybe but also just some vague cultural osmosis), and I think that might help explain why some of the earlier commenters were frustrated with it - going into a movie expecting one emotional landscape and being delivered a different one creates an uphill battle for the writer/director to successfully give the audience the catharsis we seek. We're expecting the central emotional resolution of the movie to be Nora's letting go of her past love, but maybe it's really about Hae Sung's letting go. Important scene: The first one that comes to mind for me is when Nora tells Hae Sung that she wants to stop Skyping for a while. It's a natural turning point in the movie that invites the watcher to imagine all of the other ways it could've gone. Nora could spend extra energy trying to prove to Hae Sung how much he means to her or more, but she doesn't, because she's Nora. She's very matter-of-fact (though still sad!) that her life has been consumed by an intense placeless friendship rooted in nostalgia, and that it's not right for her anymore. It limits possibilities and sets everyone on one path for the rest of the movie, and initiates the central tension. Unimportant scene: This is a pretty tight movie, so hard to say. Maybe that scene where we see the products of Nora and Arthur's ~art~? the auditions and the book signing LOL. ig it's meant to add texture and show that their roles in NY and thus their marriage is very lived-in and borderline rote so maybe not unimportant but idk i think i would've preferred like a dinner with friends or them both writing on their laptops on the couch or smth. Most enjoyed: I loved the camerawork. The shots often wandered and lingered a lot before settling on the protagonists or the longer-term framing of the scene, and it really added to the theme of In-Yun in a subtle way. Probably cliche but it felt like any one of the extras that we pan past could have story as rich and interesting as our trio, and that in the next life we'll get closer to them somehow for having witnessed their existence just now. The opening invites this explicitly, with some random couple at the bar whispering about what might be going on with the trio (and I think we eventually see this couple in the background of the later bar shots!). Lovvvved that opening Least enjoyed: It was so painful to see Hae Sung arrive in New York. To hear that he had just broken up with his girlfriend, and to see that he so obviously came halfway across the world just to see her, to know that she clocks it immediately and keeps her cards close to her chest as a result. The lonely muffin breakfast in the hotel lobby! Agh! Oof! To me, the upwelling of emotion felt awkwardly one-sided when he and Nora saw each other again for the first time in so long - at least until they talk things through at the bar with Arthur chillin in the back. I think this speaks to the strong acting on all sides, and good writing, but man was it hard to watch. Not the good kind of painful either, an unenjoyable pain - I think this has to do with the misplaced cathartic expectations I mentioned before, where we expect the movie to be about Nora letting go but it's kind of about Hae Sung's letting go. I do think the painful experience of the beginning of his trip ends up making his insights at the bar so much richer and more meaningful, and then he and Nora can truly relax into the friendship they both had been missing, but because we're not expecting this to be the resolution it makes the buildup feel extra awkward. Nora breaking down when he leaves is when I finally understood how much he meant to her, and the grief she feels at keeping her guard up while he was visiting until the bar conversation, at leaving Korea despite loving her life now, at not getting the chance to see what they might have been to each other (her adorable 12-year-old matter-of-fact super-Nora conviction that they'd get married someday!), etc - and I think everything fell into place for me here because this was what I was primed to/was hoping to see resolved. But man I struggled with the movie up until that point.

Louis-Antoine LeBel

This movie has been on my watchlist for a little while now, so I’m glad I got a push to watch it! * An important scene The park scene with young Nora and Hae Sung. Up until this point, there hasn’t been any music, but “If you leave something behind” starts playing when the two children play in the head-statues. And the music is wonderful. Playful airy synths dance around laid-back acoustic instruments. It creates a very soothing atmosphere that perfectly sets the tone for the rest of the film. The rest of the soundtrack is as beautiful. “An immigrant and a tourist” is another highlight. So much of the movie happens in the pauses between sentences, bathing in their occasional awkwardness and serenity. When we’re trying to come up with the next thing to say, only to realize that the quiet might be enough. It’s a pretty bold choice to choose ambient music as a soundtrack for a movie. I’ve been listening to it a lot since my viewing, shoutout Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen. * An unimportant scene Can’t think of one :/ * The thing you most enjoyed experiencing The cinematography, or just the audiovisual presentation as a whole. Most shots are very still, and anytime there’s any movement of the camera, it’s pretty light. This stillness pairs well with the contemplative soundtrack as well as the characters who all go under a lot of introspection. So much is said by the characters’ bodies: their gaze, their small movements. Also, every single shot looked so gorgeous and so warm. Anytime there was an exterior scene, I wanted to step into the movie and walk around for a bit. I don’t know what it is about movies that are shot on film, but they’re so pleasant to look at. * the thing you least enjoyed experiencing Me not crying? I went into this movie expecting to cry by the end, but I didn’t. I suppose my main criticism of Past Lives is that I feel like we don’t know the characters all too well beyond their relationships with each other. We only get a glimpse of Nora’s plays, her husband has popular book called “Boner”, and we barely know of Hae Sung’s previous romantic relationship. I didn’t feel much of a connection towards them, I guess. I got a bit emotional at the end, sure, but, for me, the appeal of the movie was the incredibly peaceful atmosphere that invited introspection of my own. Overall, I had an amazing time. I was vibing the fuck out as soon as the first track started playing and I was just mesmerized by almost every single shot. I didn't really talk about the themes or the story at all I just realized, I just geeked out about the music lol.

benedict.m

my lukewarm take about this movie is that if you'd never seen any other romantic movie before, it wouldn't be very remarkable. what makes this movie so interesting (to me) is how elegantly it avoids the contrivances & cliché conflicts of so many stories about love & romantic relationships: the long-lost childhood crushes do share affection and love when they reconnect, but they aren't meant to be together. the "evil white husband" who's in the way of the couple we may want to be together is kind, a good partner, profoundly strong in his gentleness. our romantic lead is sometimes a bit emotionally closed off, sometimes confused, but not truly torn between two men. not a cheater, not impulsive, not unrealistic. if you're not familiar with the way stories kind of like this tend to go, these things might seem pretty normal. because they are! in my experience real life relationships tend to be a lot more like the ones in this film than the ones you see in your average rom-com. so when you're used to contrivances, unearned conflicts, people doing horrible things and their consequences being handwaved because "tRuE lOVe," a story like this is incredibly fucking refreshing. personally, it didn't make me cry much but it made me feel seen, and I've thought about it pretty often since i watched it. love does not always equal compatibility. a good story doesn't always mean a good marriage. you can love two people and not be horrible to either of them. love matters. the people we love make us, and we make them. a gorgeous and kind film, 10/10 follow me on letterboxd

Jaguar Stevenson

Enjoyed most: The silence. the end scene where it feels drenched in how conscious we are that its likely their last physical shared moment, that it’s so meaningful to both of them and yet, there’s nothing to do but stand in front of each other I want to claw for a camera or a last joke or some futile way of deluding myself into feeling like I can grasp it, keep it, wrap it up in a poetic bow while there’s still time, while they’re still standing in front of me Like the meaning should translate into something beyond But it doesn’t We do that in stories and art and more, fueled by trying to bridge the discrepancy between how big it feels and how sometimes all there is to do is stand about it Commonly we are the translators into something beyond Which this movie both indulges and refuses to do Holding too the moments before and between the stories we hold and build and twist

Jay Oshiki

So I just finished this movie and! It DID make me cry but I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t in the way I was expecting! Similar to what a couple ppl have already said, I was told this was movie about soulmates, and we seemed to be set up for a love story. So I went into this movie ready to feel STEAMED abt the glorification of one-true-love and the anatonormativity of it all. I thought everyone was crying because we were supposed to want Nora and Hae Sung to be together, but they couldn’t. But like!! Even if that lost-love thing is part of the melancholy, that’s not why I cried at the end! The second half of this movie I kept thinking about platonic partnership, and things my friend has said to me before: “if soulmates are real, you’re one of mine.” “If in this world you can only be family, friends, or lovers, then lovers fits us best, but that’s not what we are” I’m not suggesting Nora and Hae Sung are meant to be platonically partnered, or some other subversion of romance, but I did really resonate with the feeling of having such intense love for someone, and not knowing what to do with it, because that person doesn’t fit any of the roles we’re made to choose from. My fave scene was Nora and Arthur’s apartment conversation. I loooved Nora’s reflections on Hae Sung being “so Korean” and how it made her feel both more and less Korean to be with him. Also Arthur processing this through The Narrative!! Bc he is a writer! I love that the circumstances of their marriage are “unromantic.” It makes me think of the whole “soulmates likely don’t exist, but if they do they’re built” thing from The Good Place. Arthur’s reflection on how everyone involved SHOULD be feeling if this were a story (ok meta) made me think about Nora telling Hae Sung that he was in love with a version of her. Idk, something something being seduced by the narrative vs the person. But those two also genuinely love each other so!! I don’t think Hae Sung’s feelings are purely soulmate propaganda. I cried at this movie because it’s beautiful that love can be so intense even if it’s more complicated than Yearning, and I cried for Nora’s complicated feelings of selfhood (Arthur saying there’s a piece of her he’ll never have, Hae Sung being one of the only ppl to truly See Her but also he really doesn’t know her anymore either), and her sobbing catharsis at the end.

silentcrystaltears

just watched this tonight w my dad. lovely film. not that the scene is unimportant but an unimportant detail i loved is when hae sung was on the flight to china and the soundtrack outlines a Bb (maybe add9 idk?) chord and the flight announcement is in key and completes the phrase. what the hell awesome loved arthur and the way his anxieties feel real to the viewer because it reads at first as being.. prescient? because the kind of thing he's describing feels exactly like what would happen in this story the climax is so well done. there's lots about these characters that i don't have experience with but their last moment of waiting for the uber with nothing to say.. definitely makes me think of someone in particular in my life. at first in the bar their past life stories are grandiose but they eventually reach a conclusion that their past lives maybe were even less connected, and then in the climax nora brings up the idea of what their future lives could be, bringing the past and present and future lives into a linear timeline brings me a lovely image, that even though they aren't right for each other now, on a cosmic scale they on course for each other and rapidly accelerating? idk its just a really pretty thought. i didn't cry during the movie but i did writing this

Manny

Hae-Sung + Arthur felt like representations of Nora's fragmented identity, or of her two different lives. I felt very slow for not having the thought earlier in the movie, but I only really considered this during the scene near the end where the two men meet for the first time and you watch them both really struggle to communicate. They very barely speak each other's language. It's as if there's parts inside Nora's mind that can't understand each other. She loves the "Arthur" part of herself but she has this immense, unshakeable feeling that something really big and meaningful is missing. This whole other "Hae-Sung" part of herself, her other life, was just taken away at age 12. It's there for her to look at and acknowledge but no matter what she tries, she just cannot Access it. (I guess there's lots of less grim ways to read the long, long silences when the two of them meet, but that was my reading). I am simply a white dude trying my best to appreciate this movie and I don't mean to imply that people like Nora are inherently broken or something. I've always had an instinctive, well-meaning tendency to consider the people in my life who grew up across multiple cultures/had immigrant parents/etc to be "just like me!", aside from the different ways some people might treat us because of our different ethnicities. Then I had a loved one tell me "this is a really big part of my life. It's a big deal for me and I think about it a lot". This movie has hopefully made me appreciate things a little better.

Silver

Dont have anything original to say except ✨colours and music✨ Both were absolutely brilliant in this movie A good friend of mine very big into colour-symbolism and emotional effects of colours in art and this is an incredible example for how subtle colouration of background/setting/clothing can influence tone athmosphere and emotion Perfect example is of course the climax with the blue closed shop front The same goes for the music. But Eleanor already talked about the music I greatly appreciated the original orchestration and genre. Symphonic filmmusic is what we are used to and im glad to see such an effective example of very original filmmusic without taking too much of the viewers attention away from the movie and instead working beautifully to support the emotional weight of certain scenes. I loved both the portrayal of Hae-Sung’s struggle with his masculinity and adored Arthur’s self reflection and communication with Nora (I might not post on coming movies of the months as often as, while i feel very deeply about movies, i struggle articulating it in a more worthwhile way than just saying that i loved this and that without going further)

BethiePage42

My favorite shot was when they parted as children; the first of their anticlimactic goodbyes. Im willing to argue this was the most important moment in the film. These two really did know love. For one day at the age of 12 they knew happiness together. And those mere moments of pure love resound throughout their lives. But in truth, they chose lives apart from each other. In a movie where very little happens, one thing did keep happening: these two refuse to share themselves and/or choose each other. My heart breaks for anyone who sees love in their disembodied nostalgia. In my mind love inspires dynamic action, and this movie is lacking sorely in that dept, for my tastes.

CJ The X

Fun fact: the bookstore where Arthur’s doing his book signing is where I found my copy of Life In Code by Ellen Ullman! I looked at several stores before finding it but there is was, McNally’s Williamsburg. And SHOUT OUT TO TORONTO PEARSONNNNNN i like Toronto ========= I think this is actually not a very romantic movie at all. Obviously romance is the subject matter, but it’s more of a character study of this one really ambitious person who values her autonomy and career waay above romance. In being so unrelentingly specific, using the language and intensity of romance without ever really indulging IN romance, it manages to focus on a really specific ineffable yearning. I’m realizing that I kind of primed it by using the word “soulmate” in the main post, colouring the film before watching. I hate writing summaries! I realize now why sometimes they limit themselves to really dry unexpressive plot details I will try harder to be more opaque in the future This isn’t really a love triangle, because Nora at no point genuinely wants to be with Hae-Sung. And not because she is so in love with her chosen partner, Bella-Edward-Jacob style, but because that’s not really what she’s looking for. Her relationship with Arthur is not particularly tender or passionate or dazzling It just Works. He touches on that in his extremely brave and vulnerable late night conversation with her in bed There’s that terrifyingly brave, awkward unsettling conversation Arthur and Nora have in bed: ———— A: “(We) slept together because we both happened to be single, realized we both live in New York moved in together to save on rent, married so you can get a green card” 
What if you met someone else at that residency? What if there were another writer from New York who’d also read all same books you had, and watched all the same movies, who could give you useful notes on your plays, who’d listen to you complain about your rehearsals? N: That’s not how life works. 
A: Yeah. But wouldn’t you be laying here with him? N: This is my life, and I’m living it with you. ———— When he asks if she’s gonna run away and leave him for her childhood romance, she doesn’t say Of Course Not I Love You More Than The Moon Loves The Sea, she says “Do you know me? I’m not gonna miss my rehearsals for some dude.” Which is actually the most honest thing. She isn’t that interested in sweeping romance, or being known and fulfilled deeply. She’s happy with the life she’s built. You see it in her literally just walking down the street, swinging her arms beaming at the prospect of being alive and doing what she wants to do. Arthur brings it to a total point, extremely bravely and vulnerably concluding with: ———— A: It’s just that you make my life so much bigger and I’m wondering if I do the same for you. N: You do. ———— And you just get the deep feeling that this is not true at all. She’s not picking Arthur over Hae-Sung out of passionate irrational love, but total rational self interest in her life as it is. This is the same choice she already made in the past. There IS a soul connection with Hae-Sung, he makes her feel intense irrational yearning, but she as a human being does not value that yearning more than she values her work and life in New York. Hae-Sung clearly CAN trigger that yearning in her, and feels (like so many of us) that this intense intimate unspeakable knowing and yearning is probably the most important thing in the universe. If he feels this way for her and no one else, and SHE feels something like that about HIM and no one else, why do anything except indulge that feeling, consequences be damned? ………… They have a minor language barrier that causes the conversation to be a little slower and more stilted, but they’re also just a little awkward together because they are so different and their connection is so vaguely defined. They’re both slightly anti-social in a way, she’s wilful and private and totally uncompromising, while he’s so soft and anxious and persistent, in a way also completely uncompromising in that persistence and directness. He also gets her in a childish but essential, shameless way. When they’re boarding the boat he has the kind of sexy, disarming confidence to ask she’s “You’ve always wanted to win awards, so what award do you want to win now?” 
She tries to refuse this characterization of herself by going “i dont think about that stuff anymore” but hes like “Then think about it and pick one,” and within about 3 seconds she decides “A Tony”, revealing she either 1. DOES still think about that stuff, or 2. she still has it in her, tender and private and filtered. Really demonstrative of his ability to break through the image she wants to project, the personae of a matured person who is beyond old childish passions, right back to some version of her buried deep inside. The most joyful unbridled chemistry they ever share is the date they have in the park as children. You can see how perfectly in harmony they are at that time. Then on their last day together, they have no idea how to deal with the impossibly massive feelings of separation. It’s just way too adult for their little child hearts. It requires explicit communication of feelings they can’t articulate, feelings that may be impossible to articulate at all. So they walk in silence then leave without honouring what they mean to each other. he entire rest of the movie is them trying to feel and express that massive feeling, which is STILL too cosmic to manage as adults. ——STANDING FACE TO FACE WAITING FOR AN UBER—— He is SO BOLD. He turnes to face her directly, he KNOWS she’s thinking about it. Just absolutely terrorizing her for that moment. Challenging her whole self conception, challenging her assertion that the little girl he knew doesn’t exist anymore. The way she keeps her face entirely smiling, impenetrable on his last bid, as he asks what she thinks they might be in the next life. She gives an utter nonanswer: “I don’t know.” Final rejection. The last moment of this movie where she breaks down crying in Arthur’s arms… is kind of the real progression that occurs. She is obviously not a crier. This experience has obviously revealed to Arthur that there are parts of herself that she keeps completely private. Something that Hae-Sung can titillate, even if she fiercely fights back to keep it at a reasonable distance. But throughout this strange trial, Arthur proves his quality so profoudnly. He has such resilience and fearlessness, beginning conversations and enduring discomfort with such dignity. So by the end, when Nora releases into him, one wonders if she has ever cried like this, especially over something so personal and precious and private. Maybe this is the start of Arthur actually making Nora’s world bigger. Maybe he understands her now in a way he didn’t. He was there for this and he was fucking perfect. He’s been in that intimate unreachable place now. When she broke up with Hae-Sung in their Zoom romance renaissance, she kept stony. Didn’t cry, stayed controlled and direct, achieving her goal for herself without giving him access to the part of her she needed to protect. But she gives it to Arthur, who has quietly proven beyond all shadow of a doubt that he can handle that. He deserves it. He really loves her. If she’s going to be vulnerable with someone, this is the guy. ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Side note I think when she keeps saying he’s “so Korean” it’s just her trying to express big ineffable emotions and lacking the faculties to do so, or figuring out an inoffensive way to express it to Arthur. Like culturally I’m sure there’s some meaning to it, but it’s so obvious that she is kind of wiggling around saying something other than that, something harder to express and more difficult to admit. “You’re so Korean” is code for “You’re so something from my childhood that was ripped away from me without my control and I have accepted I have lost and will never truly get back, something i have learned to love life without, a need I will not allow to destroy my happiness” ''''''''''''''''''''' I honestly don't really feel the need to read morals or symbolism into this, I just loved tasting these feelings. I don't really relate to any of them or their experience, I feel like I've just been let into some of the most emotionally complex experiences of their lives and I'm honoured to be there.

azalea water

Past Lives is one of those movies that’s so annoyingly simple, yet effective, it makes you wonder why on earth nobody had made this film before 2023. It’s a romance about immigration, long-distance relationships and language – all things that you’ve seen explored elsewhere in a 100 different ways. But Past Lives combines them so seamlessly, it feels like the first time you're seeing those themes explored. It’s a tiny scene, but when Arthur and Nora are going through the airport terminal, you see Nora’s passport on screen for just a second. Her American passport. In that 12 year time skip, she got a citizenship test, swore an oath and bought a passport. That’s months of her life implied in a scene, lasting less than a minute. This film is built on inference. You see Nora’s mother’s pens and crayons before you learn she’s an artist, see Hamlet off screen before you learn Nora is a playwright, and are shown the Canadian flag before Canada’s ever mentioned. Past Lives is a masterclass in worldbuilding, showing the important moments of each character’s story while implying years of work through background detail. The scene that blew me away on a second viewing was Nora’s first time meeting Arthur. Apart from her and her sister practising English on the plane, I think this scene is the first time we hear Nora speaking English. It’s such a simple choice to make: She speaks English first with Arthur, and rusty Korean with Hae Sung. But it’s perfect. It says so much about the relationships between the characters without saying anything (so to speak). I love how language works in this film, especially how so much of the Korean dialogue is left untranslated. You don’t see subtitles for child Nora and Hae Sung’s chat by the statues, or when Hae Sung’s texting Nora over facebook. So unless you’re a Korean speaker, you simply won’t pick up on some of the minor details. And I loved experiencing that. The story is communicated while leaving nuggets of nuance for those Korean speakers watching. And even though I don’t speak Korean, there was still information communicated during those scenes. Again, it’s that worldbuilding: details of something much bigger, even if you don’t pick up on it. Arthur and Hae Sung’s language barrier digs deep – the bar scene at the end, specifically. There’s such a want to understand and connect with each other, but their only real connection is Nora. The few words of Korean and English they share aren’t much, but the fact they’re trying is enough to move you. I’ve got some Dutch family*, and while they speak English, I know there are words in Dutch that don’t translate directly. There are those little nuances in Dutch that you could capture in a word that’d take twice as long to explain in English. Those tiny differences can mean the world when trying to connect with someone. And no matter if that connection is familial, platonic or romantic, there will be nuance lost between languages. That's something this film captures better than anything else I've seen (*I should clarify that we're related through weird, family tree shenanigans, not through blood)

eyesoffatima.

Just finished this movie. Watching Death Becomes Her for the first time ever this morning, to watching this for the first time at night is quite a whiplash.

Megan S.

An important scene: “"You dream in a language I can't understand. It's like there's this whole place inside you I can't go." - god. This scene is so fucking good. It says: here is intimacy and longing, intimacy within longing and longing within intimacy (and maybe this phrasing still separates them too much, but it is hard to express non-dualistic ideas through language so I digress). I don’t know. It feels hard to write about because if it could be expressed in a pateron discussion post, we wouldn’t need that scene. Still, I love that the movie held up knowledge as a pillar of love. There will always be places inside us that others can’t go, but Arthur’s gentle insistent curiosity feels like it gets pretty damn close. An unimportant scene: I really loved the general ambience of the writer’s retreat. I feel like this film does a really good job of making interior spaces seem simultaneously welcoming and lived in. It feels like the perfect environment for Arthur and Nora’s romance to blossom. Feels almost like escapism, but that might just be me wanting to go on a writer’s retreat in the woods. The thing I most enjoyed experiencing was how Song captures the beauty and intimacy of the life Nora has built. Her relationship with Arthur was genuinely compelling and beautiful, and serves to make her relationship with Hae Sung all the more wistful. The thing I least enjoyed experiencing was this gut feeling that I was missing some vital emotional piece of the film. I connected to certain scenes of Hae Sung and Nora’s relationship (the scene when they were children, when they were climbing and exploring and playing together really got to me). I just don’t feel like I ever emotionally bought into Nora's emotional dilemma. It’s perfectly fine that we never thought she would leave Arthur for Hae Sung. If this is meant to be a tragic love story (tragic lost connection story?), then knowing it won’t work out is half the deal. I think my main emotional dissonance came from the fact that Past Lives leans so hard into subtlety that I never really grasped the full sense of what Nora was missing. I know that Hae Sung represents her past and her Korean heritage and just this whole potential life that she never got to experience. I get that. I just didn’t feel that while watching the movie, and I think part of it is that we didn’t get to see much of Nora’s longing on screen.This structural subtlety was mixed with dialogue that felt very non-naturalistic and on the nose to me. Subtle storytelling and non-naturalistic dialogue can both be really useful tools, but it felt like their combination took me out of the story. Still, we do see her longing in the end. Ultimately, I’m really glad this film exists. I didn’t emotionally connect to it as much as I would have liked to, but clearly many people did. The acting was wonderful, the score was melancholic and wistful, and parts of the writing were genuinely compelling and evocative. It was sincere, and specific, and interesting. What else can you ask of art?

Abby K

This is not so much a take on the movie itself, but the line “It’s just that you make my life so much bigger and I’m wondering if I do the same for you” really came for me on a personal level. The first time I watched this movie, I had had almost this exact conversation the night before and was still kind of processing it. Was jarring to say the least. Really felt like the movie was watching me for a second. I have never been in a situation anything like Nora’s, but this movie gets at something about the way it feels to be a person juggling the complexities of love and identity. Reminds me of Andrew Haigh’s Weekend, another quiet, small, and achy film about people bouncing off each other. Please recommend me others like this because I love pain.

D.S Films

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRybqfQ9zCEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRybqfQ9zCE My favorite YouTuber before CJ kicked down the door 'Like Stories of Old' released this 'essay' about the film not long after I watched it for the first time. I share because it highlights details I noticed first time watching, as well as some stuff that I missed. The main thing being that the film opens up an opportunity to view different perspectives. Not only the lost childhood lover just waiting for a reunion, but also the 'evil American husband. The film tells a full and complex story about both, able to hold the longing of Hae Sung, and the complex relationship with identity faced by Arthur, in the same breath. From the very beginning we look at these three as outsiders, questioning the context behind their awkward, complex state of existence, and this allows us to get closer to each of their stories without a feeling that one is more personal than the other. All of them are richly layered experiences that exuberate from the screen in all the complexity required for telling a timeless story of love, longing, identity, and meaning. While the sillier side of me initially wanted the film to end with the protagonists looking at the people across the bar and guessing their situation, illustrating that complexity such as this exists within everyones lives, as we all need to make comprisises while living out our identity, I really enjoyed the quiet nature of the ending we received, as it lingered on each character with the bittersweet feeling of sacrifice, but also the reward of discovering who they were really destined to be, in this life. Overall, the film is a passionte, unique tale filled with love, desire and acceptance of the imperfect but equally beautiful nature of life. An emotional ride that will be very difficult to forget, especially as we get that occasional glimpse of what we could of had.

Lucas Regis

Already wrote too much on this one so keeping it simple An important scene: Unironically I could write 10 different answers for this. That one scene with Arthur in the bed that is also probably everyone else's answer is one, of course. Oh my god!!!! For a less obvious answer, I really love the opening sequence where we watch the throuple from an outsider's perspective, speculating on what's their relationship. The irony in how wrong their guesses are is appreciated, obviously, but I also like how it foreshadows the measured and somewhat distant approach the movie is going to take. My favorite way to describe this movie is as a "study on love". An unimportant scene: Chicken wings!! Chicken wings!! This scene could've been literally anything else but I'm so glad it is what it is Thing I most enjoyed experiencing: Entire third act aside; Arthur is the greatest husband in cinema history. Adore him and adore his relationship with Nora. This is one of those movies that gets me in an unbearable state of yearning and honestly it's entirely because of their marriage. Thing I least enjoyed experiencing: Entire second act aside; extremely nitpicky answer but I hate that the movie continues for like 5 seconds more than necessary with that shot of Hae Sung on the bridge when it already had quite literally the perfect final shot in the bag with the street scene. Both in my first watch and in this rewatch my main reaction was "done. god. this was so beautif-- oh it's still going. uhhh...???? oh ok its done". Even the music starts to crescendo as they close the door behind them and it seems like it's getting ready to cut to black but then it is forced to keep going for a few more seconds. Why, Celine Song!!! Whyyyyy

alexinthevoid

i really appreciate that the film nora mentions is eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, which, similar to the movie itself, is centred around fated love

halley

I can't stop thinking about this scene at the bar towards the end. It felt like a conversation I keep trying to have with my mom. one of us desperately trying to hold on to a former version of a person who has changed, and one of us changed. "N: but the truth I learned here is, you had to leave because you're you. and the reason I liked you is because you're you. and who you are is someone who leaves." "N: The na young you remember doesn't exist here." "H: I know." "N: But... that little girl did exist. She's not sitting here in front of you, but it doesn't mean she's not real. 20 years ago, I left her behind with you."

Lou Corben

I’m fine, and you? I was going to write this up two hours ago but then I had something else to do… Some things I noticed on second viewing: After Nora leaves, Seoul is mostly depicted as rainy and gloomy while America is mostly depicted as warm and sunny. I think the only time we see rain in New York before Hae Sung’s arrival is during one of the skype calls - even then you only see the rain as shadow on the wall. When Hae Sung arrives in NY he brings the rain with him. When Nora tells Hae Sung she doesn’t want to have their calls any more, he’s left in darkness, but on her end, the sun emerges through her window which is gently blown open. I think the rain is symbolic of Nora’s history as a crybaby - Korea/Hae Sung reflect her more emotional self, that she’s finally able to reconcile at the end of the movie when she can finally cry in front of Arthur. (this might be a reach but the mention of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind might also connect with her repressing her emotions and that being reflected through the weather) Hae Sung is lonely and in love with the *idea* of Nora. He’s a tourist in New York and in her life. Is what they have in their online relationship real? Can you really love someone without their embodied presence? I think Nora knows it real isn’t but is being drawn into it, which is why she decides to cut the calls off - only then can she move into her future and meet Arthur, in real, embodied space, in sunny Montauk. The day after Hae Sung's arrival in NY when when he meets Nora, the sun is out, and they meet at a statue depicting a man and woman facing away from each other, in contrast to the statue from their childhood date. I enjoyed the use of staging and physicality throughout - the times they turn to face each other directly like the statues. In the bar scene this happens, but Nora remains closer to Arthur than to Hae Sung, despite having her back turned to Arthur. When Hae Sung leaves, the sound pans in from the right, beckoning Nora back into her present, and now he’s finally been able to let go, we see Hae Sung driving into his own future with the sun on his face.