Past Lives is a touching and thought-provoking romantic debut feature film written and directed by Celine Song, an up-and-coming Korean-Canadian director. It is a film about embracing the decisions you make along the way, explored through a semi-autobiographical story spanning 24 years between two childhood friends in Korea who separate when one of them migrates to Canada at the age of 12.

The film opens with a gradual push-in to three people sitting at a bar – an Asian man, an Asian woman, and a white man. The woman sits between the two men, talking almost exclusively to the Asian man, though we cannot hear what they are saying, while the white man sits silently and looks over at them occasionally. Meanwhile, we hear voice overs speculating the relationship between the three people. Are they colleagues? Are the two Asians a couple and the white man a mutual friend? Or are the Asian woman and the white man a couple, and is the Asian man her brother? The questions linger.

The film then cuts back to 24 years ago to 2000 Seoul, South Korea, depicting the story of two Korean childhood friends, Na Young (Greta Lee as adult, Seung Ah Moon as child), and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo as adult, Seung Min Yim as child). The three acts of the film are separated by 12-year gaps, following the characters from age 12 to age 36 as they navigate through their relationship and their own lives.

Past Lives is a decent film that, in my opinion, escalates to great heights in the final minutes. At first glance, the film feels like a discounted version of Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy (a trilogy of romantic films following two characters, each film 9 years apart), with all three films mashed together to one. There is no denying the influence those films have on Past Lives, not least because the structure of the film heavily mirrors the trilogy, and several set pieces can be seen as nods to set pieces in the trilogy as well. The film relies on conversation and dialogue, just like the trilogy does.

The more I sat with the film, the film ends up being more thought-provoking and affecting than I initially felt while watching it. As much as the film relies on dialogue, conversations are actually few and far between – the silence speaks volumes at the right moments. Drawing from her experience as a playwright, Director Celine Song is masterful in her choice of moments of silence, allowing the characters to speak through their actions, facial expressions, and even their physical distance from each other in the frame.

A key concept the film introduces is the ‘In-Yun’, a Korean Buddhism concept that relates to providence or fate. “It’s an In-Yun if two strangers even walk by each other in the street and their clothes accidentally brush,” Young explains in the film. “There must have been something between them in their past lives.” As a Malaysian Chinese, this concept is not foreign to me. We call it 缘 (Yuán). It ties deeply with the concept of reincarnation and karma, where actions in one’s past lives can affect your current one, and that it’s destiny that brings two people together.

In Past Lives, Song draws from her own life and explores that idea through the lens of an Asian immigrant who has lived through two different cultures after migrating from the East to the West, viewing life back in Korea as a ‘past life’ in itself. Each decision made along the way has brought the characters to different places (metaphorically and physically) at different stages of their lives, and all these past versions of themselves have, in one way or another, contributed to their current state of being – where they are, and, more importantly, who they are with. The film is about embracing fate, destiny, or In-Yun – accepting and embracing decisions made in those ‘past lives’, not in a defeatist way but with a hopeful and optimistic outlook.

Past Lives features an astonishing minimalist soundtrack by Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen, both marking their film scoring debut. The score is tantalising, charming, meditative, and longing. It adds colour to the picture without overstating it, and draws out emotions without overwhelming you. A standout piece is “In Yun”, which never fails to send tingles down my spine. As mentioned above, silences are pivotal in the storytelling and the drawn-out spaces between music make you long for it, much like the longing the characters in the film feel. Adding to the magic is the gorgeous and purposeful cinematography by Shabier Kirchner, who uses colour and framing to express the distance and emotions of the two lead characters at different times.

All in all, Past Lives is a touching romantic story about embracing one’s decisions and destiny. I found myself tearing up within the last 5 minutes of the film, without really knowing why, and that to me, is a testament to the film’s subtle moving quality. I highly recommend it, especially for fans of the Before Trilogy.

Author: Chia Jing Heng (andreusjh99)