Past Lives (Celine Song, 2023)

[DarkImbecile]

Trailer

[Persona]

PAST LIVES

A handsome if unremarkable film in many ways, very ably arranged, performed, shot, and edited -- and very personal in its written viewpoint, if not in its aesthetic one.

That said, the core pathos of the film definitely resonated with some things I have experienced in my own life, and so the grounded and graceful execution to go with that core, well, it results in something I found fairly beautiful and moving.

But for anyone who can't relate, probably not enough to recommend this, at least not highly.

[senseabove]

PAST LIVES

A handsome if unremarkable film in many ways, very ably arranged, performed, shot, and edited -- and very personal in its written viewpoint, if not in its aesthetic one.

That said, the core pathos of the film definitely resonated with some things I have experienced in my own life, and so the grounded and graceful execution to go with that core, well, it results in something I found fairly beautiful and moving.

But for anyone who can't relate, probably not enough to recommend this, at least not highly.

As first films go, I think Past Lives is pretty great. You may be right that's it's more personal in its writing than its aesthetics, but its aesthetics are far from anonymous, and as far as the writing goes, while the character and plotting are deftly subdued, the dialogue is worked into a lather that feels incongruous a few too many times. But I'd be delighted if Song's casually interesting compositions and deft observation of her actors were the unremarkable MOR for contemporary American indies.

[Persona]

But I'd be delighted if Song's casually interesting compositions and deft observation of her actors were the unremarkable MOR for contemporary American indies.

Yes, same.

[zedz]

I'm with Persona on this. It's a nice film, but thoroughly unremarkable, yet based on the rapturous response it got at the screening I attended last night it's likely to be hailed as some kind of miracle. If you've only been exposed to mainstream American films, maybe it looks like a masterpiece, but this is just doing what any number of Asian and European directors have been doing better for decades. It's nicely written and nicely acted, but it's overfreighted with significance compared to what's actually there on the screen. The audience can only expect

SpoilerShow

Nora to abandon her entire life in favour of a one-date childhood crush with somebody she hadn't seen for 24 years because that's a movie trope. It doesn't have much plausible basis in real life or in the film we've been watching, in which the characters have been acting reasonably and sensibly. So leaning on that expectation for a big emotional payoff is kind of lazy and weak. I'm not going to be heartbroken because the main character turned out to not be an idiot. And I just don't buy this tenuous relationship as a great lost love on either side.

I actually know somebody who did exactly what is suggested in the spoiler above, and it ended disastrously all around (like, fatally disastrous). That story would make for a far better movie, but it would have to be made by a much braver director than Celine Song.

Nevertheless, there's good stuff here, when it isn't being diluted by generic indie fluff (like the generic indie fluff New York in which some of it is set, or the Skype montage that I guess is supposed to represent some kind of profound connection that the movie can't actually summon). I thought the opening scene was the most interesting, with its external perspective, but because it's just left hanging and doesn't have any follow-up it ultimately makes the whole film look like a writing class exercise.

[senseabove]

While it's inarguably a kind of emotional macguffin, I never really thought it was being presented as plausible, e.g. Nora's line, said without hint of over-compensation, that's something like, "Have you met me? I wouldn't miss my rehearsals." The script's strength is in letting us ride Nora and Arthur's emotions—the irrationality of both Nora's fantasy and Arthur's fear, the element of irrationality integral to the start of any romantic relationship, that element of the early days of their own relationship reflected back at them in their present stability—without actually baiting us onto the melodramatic hook.

Similarly, I don't think the movie is trying to convey a "profound connection" and failing; it's conveying Nora and Hae Sung's mutual desire for it despite such a shaky foundation for it, the lure of third chances and that curious blend of familiarity and unexpectedness that comes from a lost-and-found friend lost and found again, rebounding from Nora's unsettled then into her settled now when Hae Sung unexpectedly resurfaces. Even if neither Arthur nor Nora actually expects her to blow up her life, it's still a disturbance to their fairly stable life together, one that understandably leads both of them to have unexpected emotions they can either suppress or face. Funnily enough, neither Asian nor European—and not just because of Magaro's presence—Reichardt felt like the more relevant filmmaker, for her signature, careful layering of small emotions that bring the greater complexity of a person's relationships to bear on the—often seemingly minor—key "problem" of the plot.

[togg]

Awfull movie, I wrote a full review on letterboxd of the moralist approach that the director has to her characters desires.

I'll copy paste it here:

SpoilerShow

What a smelly ride. Make no mistake, this is a fully fledged reactionary movie.

We are supposedly following two characters that are strongly intertwined with each other. One is a careerist girl that leaves to achieve success abroad, the other stays in Korea but will maybe destroy everything to develop this passion. You would say, "nice, this is Wuthering Heights! So many passions I can't wait!"
Think again.

During the whole movie we get zero elements about their relationship. The girl is referred a couple of time as a career oriented person. Do we ever see this in action? No. It's just a psychological sticker.
The guy has nothing going on in Seoul. We see him drinking at a bar, as if he is wasting himself. Does he really get drunk, hit his friends, fuck everything up at work? No, he is mostly looking at his feet. He then meets a girl. We never see this other girl in action either.
No action, no nothing. Those are HIDDEN passions.

(They once talk for a small period online, the most basic boring phone conversation ever. Do these people even fuck? No wonder they stop talking to each other so easily.)

Not seeing a character in action means one thing and one thing only: the director doesn't actually care about those topics, she is preparing a rhetorical explanation about the situation.

Then they have to meet. I mean they both have jobs and money, they could meet whenever but the longing is so strong so maybe catching a plane is difficult... A lot of time cuts are used to make you swallow this dynamic.
 The answer is easier of course: these two people just don't want to see each other.
They are not longing for each other.
They are *sometimes* daydreaming about longing for each other.
It's like having some spare time and cleaning the house with a good cup of tea ready. A fuzzy feeling at most.

There's a catch to make this whole emptiness bearable.
The guy is super hot. Tall, muscular, defined jaw. As for her we see her getting tired and older. 
The movie shows beauty as "a sparkle that makes us a bit embarrassed" not a disruptive passion.
Unrealistic, repressed, distasteful.

They meet in New York. There are a whole lot of couples in the backgrounds by the way (were there 
*only* couples interacting ?? scary dystopian movie...). Her present husbands play videogames. In 2023 when you want to represent something that has a negative vibe you still use videogames... Maybe because in a videogame there is more passion that these two people "longing" for each other.

Anyway nothing happens. The two of them don't have any problems, they don't have any desire for each other. So nothing happens.
At the end the rhetoric intensifies brutally. The guy spell out to us how to read the movie:
- "For him you are the one who stays, for me the one who left".
The narrative didn't even give us the right to spit on her careerism. No. There is only this shallow acceptance of social stability.
 We are supposed to believe that maybe in another life something happens between them bla bla bla. It's like going to church.
The guy is back to Korea, the girl back on the appartement after a 5 minute cry. Could have she loved two people? Who knows. These characters can't even love one.

This bland and moralist film is just a manual on how to bend your head to every social constraints that you encounter in your life, while daydreaming once a year to non-existent passions that you have heard about from other people lives.

https://letterboxd.com/togg/film/past-lives/

[The Curious Sofa]

Like senseabove I didn't think this really was a "will they/won't they" movie,

SpoilerShow

I never felt that Nora would leave Arthur, at worst this was going to be one those bumps even the most loving marriage can hit along the way. There is something very appealing about Hae Sung's romantic vulnerability but by the way he handles this situation, Arthur only confirms to be the right partner for Nora, he is her present and her future, Hae Sung will always be her past. The movie even comments on how this would play out in a drama (both him and Nora being writers), when Arthur mentions that he would be the villain of that narrative.

Rather than the love triangle being a mere trope of the romantic drama, the film uses Hae Sung's repeat presence in Nora's life as a catalyst to examine the duality of immigrant identity. Not the big dramatic story of an immigrant's hardships but a subtle sense of loss, how even the most contented and well integrated immigrant can have a sense that a piece of you is missing or at least buried deep down. Having been an immigrant myself, I can't think of another film which so eloquently expresses the feeling of when someone or something touches on that. Celine Song deals with that in an understated way, to culminate in a tremendously touching scene where nothing is said and everything is expressed. In that regard it reminded my of last year's Aftersun, which also seems to be about not much, only to end in an emotional gut punch (only this movie manages it without nudging us with one of pop's most operatic songs).

In terms of writing and filmmaking I thought this was remarkably confident first feature, Celine Song is someone whose work I will watch out for.

[Soy Cuba]

Well I thought it was a lovely film. It's presumably an biography of sorts. And another in the line of films about diaspora / immigration and what families and individuals leave behind, such as Minari, the Farewell, Tigertail, Ms Purple. All good films.

[reaky]

PAST LIVES seems to have emotional heft for most, but I found it polite, neat and writerly, and it felt like the director and I have seen quite a few of the same films.

[davoarid]

At one point the boyfriend character--a novelist with an MFA, mind you--says the phrase "laying in bed", which I could forgive once, but then...he says it again 30 seconds later.

Am I being too nitpicky to ask our screenwriters to let an editor take a pass at their script before they start filming?

[Michael Kerpan]

davoarid -- People DO actually say this (probably more often than not) -- regardless of whether it is "correct". Should movie characters talk like textbooks or like . . . people.

[MichaelB]

A friend of mine was an EastEnders script editor for years, and the grammatical solecisms that she routinely let through were eye-watering.

[reaky]

davoarid -- People DO actually say this (probably more often than not) -- regardless of whether it is "correct". Should movie characters talk like textbooks or like . . . people.

Bob Dylan included, as he extended the offer of his big brass bed.

[Michael Kerpan]

I suspect this is a case where rigid grammarians are simply wrong -- trying to overrule centuries of vernacular usage. Think about the terms "layabout" and "lay {in wait} for" and "lay low",

[Mr Sausage]

In cases like these, pedants invariably find themselves on the wrong side of history. Words are not natural laws, they are whatever we agree they mean. If enough people agree that lay also means lie, then that’s what it means. Languages work by consensus rather than obeisance.

When I was teaching ESL, this kind of thing came up periodically. When it came to conversational English, my rule was always to teach what native speakers actually say, technically correct or not, and just let the students know which contexts it was appropriate for. This sometimes flabbergasted the students who had learned this or that grammar rule in school and thought of it as iron bound. In fact English’s flexibility is one of its great assets, and one reason it has produced such an amazing and heterodox literature.

[Michael Kerpan]

Looking at various etymological stuff available online, it seems like "lay" could always be used in this supposedly incorrect way. I wonder when this prohibition on using lay in the same way as "lie" was created?

[Matt]

I believe lay/lie is discussed in Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, which, over the past several decades, has risen in the minds of many would-be grammarians from a short collection of one writer’s stylistic prescriptions to infallible holy writ.

[denti alligator]

As my linguist colleague says: I don‘t do prescriptive grammar.

Still, some things grate my ears. The lay/lie distinction isn‘t one of them, in part because I still trip up when the past is involved and lie becomes lay. Of course, if you want to pun, then you may need to break the rules, as Dylan does with Lay Lady Lay.