In one of the many quietly magnificent scenes in Past Lives — writer/director Celine Song's dynamic debut feature that made a splash at Sundance before opening the Seattle International Film Festival — we are taken into a scene of a married couple discussing their lives. Nora, played by a transcendent Greta Lee of the recent Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, listens as Arthur, played by John Magaro of this year's similarly sublime Showing Up, reflects on how moving of a story it is that she is reconnecting with her childhood friend after decades apart.
The friend is Hae Sung, played by Teo Yoo, who appeared in last year's romance of a different kind, Decision to Leave. Hae Sung has recently come to New York from South Korea to visit Nora. What could be more romantic than that? Well, as we come to learn in authentic fits and starts, this is merely the launching point for an achievement of a film that turns its eyes toward the infinite wonder and pain of life itself while still keeping its feet firmly planted on the ground.
Though Arthur's short monologue of sorts could be mistaken for the film patting itself on the back, his observation about this particular type of story is not about its strengths at all. Rather, it is about its history. There is a long cinematic tradition of characters, bound up in the allure of love and destiny, running away together after realizing they were meant to be together all along. It is almost the stuff of myth as we continue to cling to the idealized snapshots of what once was.
This is not that story, but it is one of many doors Song lets us peer through as she brings a deep awareness of the longing that comes from looking to the past while knowing life is not so simple. It is a push and pull that takes hold of you slowly then all at once, much like falling in love itself. As the film traces the lives of its two central characters through decades of departures and reconnections, the sense that they will always be tied together in some way becomes almost overwhelming. It expresses this without pretense, making it feel as though you have just yourself been given a small glimpse of the vast ocean of untold possibilities expanding before all of us.
All of this occurs even as the film may initially seem to be a smaller-scale story. There are only a handful of characters, a smattering of locations and a general emphasis on minute details. Its most devastating conversations play out in the intimate confines of an apartment, in a quiet bar where confessions come gently tumbling out or on a dimly lit street that becomes a liminal space. And yet, these moments are not small at all. With each subsequent viewing, we see how weighty each of them is even as the story remains light on its feet. There is a playful humor woven throughout it just as there is a continual sense of a potentially looming heartbreak.
The richness at the core of this rewards multiple viewings, bringing into focus little things that may escape you initially, only to lay you flat when watched again. Some of this comes from the cast, with Lee in particular giving one of the year's most multifaceted performances in moments big and small, while some of it's attributable to Song's utterly complete command of the film. There is a truthfulness to each line of dialogue, a passion to every single cut or move of the camera, and a melancholy to the way memory comes rushing in.
One moment toward the conclusion on the street brings time and space together once more via a quick cut that is simple yet completely shattering. It's a demonstration of the full emotional potential of what cinema can be, as it molds memory into something sublime. It is beautiful and brutal, serving as a gutting reminder of all that could have been just as it is likely far too late to go running back to it. For a film to capture even a small sliver of this feeling would already make it one of the year's best. That Past Lives is able to uncover what feels like all the multitudes of its characters, laying bare all of who they are and who they could have been, makes it a cut above most anything of the last decade. Just as it holds tightly to time itself, it is a work with the power to endure in our own memories as well. ♦
PAST LIVES
