Past Lives

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.

Difficult to write too much about this film who offers a nice , large fist of emotions. The story itself is simple and offers minimum surprises. The 1940 decade romance air is honest, clear and, sure, in special sense, comfortable.

It is the story of two friends, from childhood, their lives across decades, their encounter and their choices. Nothing new, at first sight, but the acting is one of precious virtues in this case, like the admirable construction of story , reminding a honey drop.

In short, I have this certitude, it is one of films for who you are grateful to director and chance to see it. And this is the mattering thing, in fact.

I felt like this film touched on so many subtle, unsaid things between people: love that's lost because two people don't know how to/don't want to prioritize it, the convenience of being in some relationships, the feeling like you're saying something just because you think it's the right thing to say (especially around the people that you think need to hear it) when deep down it doesn't feel like the truth whatsoever, and going along with something because you've already committed to it instead of doing it because you want to do it. I know that's vague, but I didn't want to spoil anything, but maybe once you've seen it you'll know what I mean. It was all handled so beautifully and had such heartbreakingly sincere human experiences. I think it's safe to say that in the end, we have no effing idea what we are doing and how it will turn out, but we just hope it's the right decision in the moment.

The wind, the leaves, the streets, the towers; everything exists with a supple glow. There's a love for environment behind the camera, where director Celine Song stands, telling her story. Kirchner, her cinematographer, lends immense craft to the film's 35mm scenery. Nora, Hae Sung, Arthur; the three central characters are handled with wonderful grace. They easily communicate complex emotion. They're likable, and they're relatable. New York City, Seoul; I hardly know either of them practically, but now I feel like I do, in some intimate way. These two cities are dearly loved. Longing; what did you think of when you finished this film?

Past Lives is an honest, delicate, and ambling movie. Nora, once a little girl from urban Korea, chooses her path as an American writer after immigrating with her family. She marries a different writer (Arthur, a Jewish New Yorker), adopts the culture of NYC, and chases her ambition. She's still Korean, but the identity ebbs. She doesn't sound like it anymore. Hae Sung, her childhood friend who never left the country, is very much Korean; his path is that of an engineer living with his parents, which he describes as ordinary. He loves Nora deeply. He loved her when she left Seoul at twelve, and loved her still at the points in which their lives intersected. Nora loves him too, in her own complicated, almost grieving way. He is her connection to a childhood she longs for, washed away in her memories, and seldom revisited because of the complicated feelings that come with being a child immigrant.

The story is simple but it bursts at the seams with emotion and humor. Admittedly slow, but without wasting your time. I connected with all three of the main characters to some degree, each carried by an actor with the apparent gravity of a veteran superstar. They are emotionally intelligent, and they react to each other in interesting, startlingly realistic ways. Celine Song plays on a very specific feeling of aching; for a forgotten time in one's life, for an identity, or for a lover. It's particular, but looking around the audience as we left the theater, you could see that most people were in their own heads, thinking of something (or someone). We all long for something lost.

Perhaps not all of us, but probably most, have also wrestled with the feeling of permanence in the journey we choose for ourselves. You only live once, said Drake, but that's really a terrifying thought sometimes. Carving out one lifetime - engineered across thousands of individual decisions - means foregoing an infinite number of others. People deal with this in a number of ways; providence, reincarnation, and an afterlife, to name a few. Nora and Hae Sung might be soulmates, but will they know it in this lifetime, or the next?

I really can't wait for the next project Song works on, and that goes double for the cast. I sunk my teeth into this deeply romantic, deeply resonant film, which is capable of bringing immense longing to the surface. It is coated with a beautiful score and draped atop memorable settings. It's a home-run.

9/10 for making me want to visit Seoul.

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.