Past Lives

Celine Song, in her directorial debut, makes a film whose story has little to do with the usual "movies." Past Lives is true, it is not the usual love story. It is not the usual movie love story. But it is more, because it is real, because it is true, because it is drawn from the living experience of the director. And in one way in the other, all of our lives are movies, only thanks to cinema we have the power to give a different development or ending to those stories. Instead, Song chose, bravely, to be true to what seemingly seems like a "trivial" love story of two people who are separated as children and meet again after 20 years by choice and not by chance. Two people who in the generality of their life stories, look at each other, scrutinize each other and love each other. It is a story made of silences, from which the thoughts of the two protagonists arise and arrive. It is a story made of glances and behind those glances are all the unspoken words, all those emotions that words would not render. Past Lives works because it is not what one expects from a film love story. It is real life.

I loved the film, it stayed with me for days.

People who watch it will either find it to be super boring or will keep thinking about it for days.

The cinematography, the dialogues, performance and Score are just beautiful. The silent moments between them are beautiful too.

I do not recommend this to everyone, but if you love movies like Before Sunrise trilogy or the Irish movie Once or Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless mind. You will love this one too.

But, for me having watched the 2018 Indian film 96 many times I could not stop comparing these two movies. , I mean the subway scene with them holding the pole just staring at one n another.

The What ifs. Both the movies are so similar concept wise.

And first-time director Celine Song has created one of these. It's a masterpiece of deeply genuine human emotion. And that masterpiece is Past Lives.

Song's dialogue is understated to the point of risking not creating a connection with the characters. It would not have worked with sub-par actors. But the risk payed off big time-all of these actors are wonderful, allowing their body language and line delivery fill in the gaps with their characters' true psychology.

A simple plot becomes a richly complex story of lost love, sought closure, and found purpose; and it's all due to Celine Song having the proper understanding of when to allow silence to speak.

Yet despite the frequent bouts of silence, not a moment feels wasted. Every shot and sentence is meticulously edited to give us exactly what we need to feel each moment with its full emotional power.

This very well may be the best film of 2023. It's the work of a master storyteller, and it's only her first film.

They say that the best kisses, the best loves, the best love stories are those that never happened, those that are idealized and remain in fantasy. Past Lives is that.

It is a beautiful film, very well directed, very mature. The dialogues are fantastic, the resolution, as it should be. The theme is the path, perhaps the theme of the time jumps and the fact that so much happens between one and the other will take you a little off. Beyond that, it is impressive that it is Celine Song's first work. As for the performances, I am far in favor of the character of the husband, very mature and deconstructed, with perhaps the best dialogues and development of the film. The last two scenes, both in the restaurant and the farewell, are by far a delight. Highly recommended.

I really enjoyed this film. What I love about Oscar season is that I'm encouraged to watch films I normally wouldn't go to (yes I know, I'm one of those people). I think the thing I most enjoyed about this film was the purely naturalistic feel to it. Some may call this mundane but life isn't always like a romance novel. Who can really say they didn't have a connection with someone from their past that they wished they had the option to explore. Things happen in our lives and the natural reaction to that is to wonder what could have been and I love how this film shows these characters exploring that and wanting to hold on to something in their past but also acknowledging that life goes on and you can't always live that fairy tale! How it was shot was also beautiful and I really like what the cinematography team did. This is very much a worthy best film nominee!