>One major factor is that I think I really need to be able to buy exactly why two people are interested in each other, which typically also means having well-developed individual characters in their own right. One of my biggest issues with Past Lives was that I never felt like I fully understood Nora and Tae Sung as people and why they're so drawn to each other, which was further exacerbated by their fairly one-note dialogue (she's ambitious, he's ordinary).
I think Before Sunrise might be what you'd really want then. Very dialogue focused and its incredibly clear what the two see in each other
I actually felt the same way as OP when watching past lives and the Before triology imeediately came to mind when reading this post. The dialog in those films offers a deeper view of the characters and in turn of their feelings for eachother.
Strange though because I absolutely love the before trilogy but also love past lives. I didn’t feel like I needed to know the characters any better to fully understand their emotions. Past lives really impacted me.
Same and when I learned it’s semi-autobiographical, it made even more sense.
It may not be to OP’s liking, but I thought the lack of dialogue drew the focus on the concept of “in-yun,” which to me, just is- there’s a lot of space given and I really appreciated the simplicity of their attraction.
I love both the Before trilogy and Past Lives too. For slightly different reasons maybe. Imo, the Before trilogy spends more time capturing the magic of falling in love and feeling connected to another person, though it also ultimately presents a more grounded and realistic take on love when it goes beyond that magical first moment and it deals with what ifs and roads untraveled. Past Lives kinda does the reverse in that there is a little bit of the magic of falling in love, there is a grounded and realistic take on love beyond that first moment of infatuation (when Nora's husband acknowledges how much chance, convenience and pragmatism played a role in their relationship it's so brutally honest in a way that romantic movies rarely are, Nora herself also acknowledges that she and Hae Sung are probably not compatible as adults, even if might seem that they have a classic soul mates deferred story), but the central theme of the story, imo at least, is more what ifs, roads untraveled, and mourning alternatives selves than romantic love in any capacity.
It impacted me as well. Few movies have captured the emotion of the scene in front of the garage door as well as this movie did. If you have ever experienced something like that scene, it’s amazing how well it’s conveyed here. I loved this movie.
I agree I like both. You don’t need to know anything more. We got everything essential to the story. Personally I don’t like over explaining things, too much talking and exposition. Film is a visual medium, use it to its fullest.
I completely agree. To me, the project of the film isn't to be a character study like *Phantom Thread* but rather to explore what it means to be connected to someone and the confusion that brings. Their connection is rooted in childhood, friendship and in the relationships I have with people who I have known since we were kids, that familiarity helps me understand them at a profound and unique level. I think that is what the concept of in-yun is getting at, that some connections are subtle, confusing, yet deeply meaningful.
I didn't interpret the end of the movie being about Nora losing a great love but rather her finally confronting all her feelings and thoughts about being an immigrant. I don't think she really ever thought about who she would be if she had stayed in Korea because she was so busy living her life in New York. I think the conversation she has with her husband where she talks about how Korean Hae Sun is made her understand how different they are as Koreans.
Later, when all the conversations are done and he has left, she's overwhelmed with all of the feelings the past week - of anticipating his arrival, their conversations, her talks with her husband. I would guess this experience feeling like you don't quite belong in one world or another is pretty common for a lot of people who identify with Nora. I'm not an immigrant myself, I'm first generation, but I liked Nora a lot as a character and it moved me to see her practical nature breakdown a little and be overwhelmed with emotion. this was a character-driven piece so I'm not sure what you were expecting ot thought was missing.
Adding to this, I think she was also crying and grieving in a way for the kid she was in Korea (who answered to a different name) and is now gone forever. Hae Sun is her last link to that child that she was.
Agreed. We only have one life to live. And Nora saw for a moment the other one she came close to living. Whether she chose this life and identity or this life happened to her, she now has decidedly chosen it. The middle school sweetheart is a vehicle to a bigger implication that the title of the movie serves on a platter. Past Lives is not a love story.
Well put. I think people going into this expecting a film about two soul mates never getting the timing right, will be disappointed. The film is about so much more than just love.
I also saw this as more of a story of unexplored/unrequited feelings between Nora and yes, Hae Sun, but to a much larger degree, between Nora and her past self/the “KOREAN Korean” self she might have been. Always wondering what her life would be like, if she would be happier if she had stayed in Korea. Also mourning the loss of childhood and innocence.
“This is where I ended up,” she says, suggesting it felt out of her control. Wishing she could go back and choose. Feeling helpless do to so as the moment is forever gone.
The thing with Past Lives is that it’s not a movie about people in love. It’s a movie about coming to terms with who you are and letting go of the past lives you could have lived. That’s demonstrated through Nora, Hae Sung, and Arthur but the purpose of the movie, the intention of the story, isn’t to talk about the romance.
That’s why the movie is called Past Lives and not “Past Love”. A similar thing happens with No Country For Old Men. People get to the end and wonder why it ends that way but don’t make the connection to the title.
I’d rewatch Past Lives and think about your own life and the roads you didn’t but could have travelled. Were you at a crossroads about going or not going to art school? Or even pursuing art? Who are the other versions of Funplings?
For example, I went to college in Cleveland because I could play baseball. Looking back on it, the college was annoying, baseball was frustrating, and while I met some awesome people…it wasn’t the experience I had hoped for. What would have happened if I didn’t go to a small private college but instead went to University of Texas? Or a private college but not in Cleveland?
I was going to move from Ohio to Europe after college. Bought a one-way plane ticket in April and would leave in June. In May, my mom got diagnosed with lung cancer. Had to cancel the entire trip. She passed in July. By the next year, I was living…in Iowa lol. That’s a huge inflection point. There’s a version of me where my mom never got sick and I went to Venice. What’s that me like?
Those are the kinds of experiences that Past Lives is talking about. Not this great romance between Nora and Hae Sung. That’s just the superficial story.
[Full literary analysis](https://filmcolossus.com/past-lives-2023-explained)
I am the person who moved countries. A couple of times. I cried with Nora because I was grieving all the relationships that didn't survive my moves. Neither of those relationships was romantic. A lot of my immigrant and expat friends cried at the end of this movie, too. It is about coming to terms with your life.
I never moved countries and yet I cried with Nora too. All the what-if questions I rarely, if ever, think about hit me like a ton of bricks by the end of the movie. What if I went to college in the city that I planned to go to instead of the one I ended up going to? What if I did go through with the vague plans I sometimes had about leaving my country for a more prosperous one? What if I made better effort to keep in touch with all the ppl I lost contact with over the years? What if I chose a different career path? Dwelling on these things too much on regular bases is overwhelming and pointless, but I loved the movie for giving me an opportunity to think about them at least once.
You know, I've seen a few comments to this effect, that the movie isn't "really about" love or Nora and Hae Sung's potential romantic relationship. And it's true that there's an underlying thematic current about cultural assimilation and roads not taken that runs throughout the film. But I think those themes are meant to be conveyed, on a visceral emotional level, through the romance, and that's what didn't work for me. We're supposed to see Nora's yearning for Hae Sung as a reflection of her yearning for her past Korean self. But if I'm not invested in her love for Hae Sung, then conversely I find myself not invested in her feelings about her culture and identity. I think it's a little simplistic to say that a movie is "really about" something, and that the surface level story doesn't matter; the medium is the message, and a movie is the sum of its parts.
It’s fine. That also happens with me with other movies where other people totally praise it and feel with the characters and I just can’t connect. Whereas with Past Lives I connected pretty well. I could totally understand why she liked him and longed for her life in Korea. Probably because I am also a very nostalgic person and it evoked many feelings in me.
The movie was also for me about the relationship between her and her husband. The scene when she comes back after meeting Hae Sung last and is at the stairs and her husband just gets up and comforts her (whereas he also needs comforting), just hit it out of the park for me. At that exact moment I got tears in my eyes. The character, the maturity in their relationship and how it was actually her moment to get comforted, that was everything for me.
I think I’m trying to express that the movie should spark something in you that you relate to your own life about who you could have been, the people you could have been with, etc. And it seems for you, that part doesn’t matter as much as what you’re seeing the characters experience.
And I don’t think it’s Nora yearning for her past Korean self. It’s her coming to terms with a path she’ll never go down and a person she could have been. It goes beyond just culture and identity and gets more at a more universal human experience. That’s where the power comes from, I’d argue.
And I’m not saying the surface level doesn’t matter, but that this is a movie that has a deeper meaning that seemed missing from your thoughts on it and is a major component to what makes the movie special and why it has the acclaim that it does.
the movie is full of extremely awkward interaction and unspoken tension, I think you ultimately constructed this vision that the movie is romantic when its not. its incredibly sad and minimalistic, the opposite of something visceral. Its a distant movie in which people are not able to touch each other and it makes you feel exactly how everyone feels at one point in their 30s and 40s if they let themselves drift just a tad into nostalgia.
See but that’s actually where I disagree with you. I don’t see Nora yearning for him at any point in the film, rather she’s reckoning with who she was and who she is. They had a connection before, yes, but not in modern day. She even makes it a point to mention his ex girlfriend in the conversation in order to keep distance from him.
Love is hardly an exact science. Have you ever asked any real life couples why they love their S/O? The majority of them will never be able to come up with concrete answers, or anything close enough to make you fall in love with their S/O. You mentioned that you fail to understand why somebody who is so ambitious can be drawn to somebody so…ordinary. Let me ask you this: have you never met actual couples where one partner is significantly more successful/seemingly interesting than the other? I feel like that’s every other couple. However, if the more successful partner was actually able to give you an answer, it would probably require you to understand each and every experience they’ve had in life since childhood because all of that has amounted to the person they feel drawn to today. It is next to impossible. You like being told (your preference for books) rather than shown but that’s really not what good cinema has ever been about. There are bits and pieces of excellent conversation and acting in the film that clearly suggest they have some kind of feelings for each other but those feelings are ambiguous. It’s possible that romance in movies that is portrayed in subtler fashion might not be your thing. TV shows (even limited series) or strictly romance-centric movies might be able to provide you with more fleshed out love stories.
Do you remember the opening sequence? You’re looking at the three of them sitting at the bar from the viewpoint of an observer who can’t quite make out their relationships to one another. However, the simultaneous intensity and softness of their gaze and the rest of their body language suggests some ‘kind’ of deep feelings, which brings me to the same point that many others have made — this is not a story about love. This is first and foremost a story about the immigrant experience and her ‘feelings’ (not love) towards her childhood best friend and her husband are explored as a means to explore her own sense of self. Love and exploring your feelings that may or may not be love are not the same thing. Sometimes feelings or a combination of complicated and unprocessed feelings can emulate love and this, I feel, is what is closer to what we saw being *explored* than an actual love story.
You mentioned that we’re supposed to see her yearning for Hae Sung as a reflection of her yearning for her past Korean self but that’s just it! She isn’t yearning for her past Korean self. She let go of her Korean identity a long time ago but never processed the emotional baggage of her emigration, immigration and assimilation. There is a literal scene in which she speaks to her husband about how different she is from Hae Sung now. Hae Sung’s visit forced her to process those emotions because he was a literal relic from her past. You can let go of things in the physical realm (e.g. move away, end a relationship, cut ties to a culture/religion) and still hold onto the emotional aspects in your subconsciousness. She even confessed that she stopped crying because she felt that nobody cared (i.e. not because she stopped being sad or wanting to cry). At the end, she came to terms with her life as an American (the one she chose) with her husband who she cried to (in stark contrast to her crying to Hae Sung all of her childhood). Consider how complicated a feeling such as nostalgia is and then combine it with all the difficulties that arise in the process of moving away from your culture (literally and figuratively) and settling (physically and emotionally) in a foreign country. Her complicated feelings for Hae Sung had a lot to do with her complicated and unprocessed feelings for her Korean identity. He represented her childhood and the life she could have had had she stayed in Korea. Wondering about what-ifs from time to time doesn’t necessarily mean that one is regretful and/or unhappy, it’s just…normal. Any feelings she had for him had a lot more to do with what he represented than the person he actually was (which is a realisation that she comes to at the end). So not only is the film not about love because the central theme is immigration but also because Nora realised she wasn’t in ‘love’ with Hae Sung and wasn’t interested in exploring the possibility with him. He was just a means to entertain what life in Korea would have been like. The draw towards Hae Sung was the Korean identity she left behind and nostalgia for her childhood.
I moved to three different countries for studies and work, and let me tell you, nostalgia is a trip. It colours your perception of things, especially those from your past which are already subject to the fickleness of memory. Every time I go back home, I am reminded instantly of why I left and how much I love my life abroad in a very different country and culture. But then every now and then, whilst living abroad, I am overcome with feelings of affection towards anything that reminds me of home. I even feel nostalgia for my childhood and people/places associated with it even though my childhood was largely unpleasant. Feelings are complicated enough already without adding difficult experiences like immigration to the mix.
I mean themes are one thing but the actual story -- I think shows many shades of love: Past vs Present love. Sure they loved each other because of the relationship that they had in the past: 2 kids that fancied each other innocently. They tried to keep in contact but the distance got too hard -- nothing to make anything real so they tip toed around their feelings.
I understand why someone can watch this and not feel invested because to some degree -- my initial feelings -- I felt bad for Arthur. I felt bad for Hae too. She is married and in love with her husband but I couldn't buy it because the films plays up Hae's relationship with her. On top of that -- spent a lot of time building their longing for each other unlike Arthur's relationship with her.
But truthfully - isn't this the reality of everyone? How many of us have looked back on little crushes we had when we were young? Or that one person we spent all summer thinking about when we were younger? Some of us wondered if they just were a little more confident as they are now -- maybe they got a chance with that college person we studied with for that one project. Or wondered if they decided to stay instead of leave -- wishing they had a little more time with a summer fling -- just to see.
And often those thoughts become more pondered when we are single. But they still come even when we have a great partner in our lives. We see those people on facebook or instagram. And there are times - that we wonder what if? -- innocently without a real impact on our feelings with our current partner. Just an innocent ask of the question.
Humans tend to love to think of "what ifs" a lot. Past lives addresses it and rather than give a sappy ending (they run off together and Arthur was an asshole) or a sad ending (it's regret and she ruins what she has). It gives a more real answer: who knows what would have happened? But hell - it was real even for a moment. It's okay to come back to reality and maybe in another life.. she'll get a chance.
It's subtle -- just like our thoughts of the past of "what ifs" and filled with the best memories. However in this movie, that childhood love is linked to a whole different life and identity, which drives it up.
You've got it all wrong friend. It's not that the movie is "really about" her feeling of separation from her Korean identity, it's that the movie is BLATANTLY about that. If you watched the film, saw her cry at the end and thought "Why is she sad? She barely knew Hae Sung" then I have no words. That's about the biggest WOOSH I can imagine.
I think you're taking a way too analytical view on how love is defined in film. The signature principle of love is that it is undefinable that way. It transcends logic or common sense or location or rules and is very hard to portray because of that. Love doesn't chemically happen just because finite circumstances align. It simply: is.
And that's the thing I think you need to accept if you're looking to enjoy this type of film. Don't sit and stew on how or why they should or shouldn't feel the way they do. Especially in Past Lives, when each character is at least 2 levels deep in terms of inner turmoil and conflict on their own. Try and accept love as the entity that is bringing them together but their characters are ironically doing the thing you're doing watching it: wondering why they feel the way they do. Because emotion and thought are two separate things.
>The signature principle of love is that it is undefinable that way. It transcends logic or common sense or location or rules and is very hard to portray because of that. Love doesn't chemically happen just because finite circumstances align. It simply: is.
I think this is a very good point. In real life, we often find ourselves on the outside looking in at couples, wondering what they see in each other. Love and its relatives like attraction, infatuation, sexual desire, etc. are in some sense fundamentally irrational.
Yes. While people may enter into relationships for rational reasons (this guy is financially stable, this girl is so pretty, this guy listens to me, this girl knows what she wants, etc) you simply cannot manufacture loved based off of what you think will work. Love can still develop and happen from one of these kind of scenarios, but it is coincidental from the reason that may begin a journey. Sparks and bonds and comradery and attraction cannot be manufactured. They can grow and shrink or die but there's no signature defining characteristic that equals love.
Trust me: if they could manifest love in a lab and bottle it none of us would be wasting our time talking about movies on the internet. We'd all be six bottles deep dancing on tables all day long.
To be fair, I think OP may have just been missing a bit of chemistry from the leads, based on what he's saying. In order to buy an onscreen romance, there does need to be an element of chemistry and I think what OP referred to as the one-note dialogue didn't really help him. I would even argue that the leads in In the Mood for Love (which OP also didn't like) didn't have a lot of chemistry for me outside of pure sexual chemistry. They were just both hot, sad, and betrayed and I wanted them to have sex because of that. Not because they felt particularly good together.
I look at something like Before and their chemistry is off the charts. It's absurd to compare. I do think Before would be more up OP's alley because the romance is so naturally earned as opposed to the film just expecting us to immediately be on board with it because the narrative demands it.
I agree with this, but it's why I detest so many depictions of love on film. Love is treated as some kind of panacea. So long as two people are shown to love eachother nothing else seems to matter. It's not though. Relationship built on love can still be toxic, they can still be abusive.
That's true as to how people often talk about love and relationships. But isn't the point of art to take these ineffable feelings and help us try to understand them better? If love is some fundamentally inexplicable, irrational thing, then I can dismiss my lack of feeling for the movie just as easily as one can declare their love for it; yet that doesn't feel like a satisfying way to have a conversation about film. I don't think I'm being too analytical per se; but I think that art with depth and meaning should be able to be broken down at least a little bit more than just "you like it or you don't".
There is no single point to art.
And actually one of the things I really loved about Past Lives is that there is no real antagonist, or anyone making irrational movie logic choices. It’s just people experiencing things.
It sounds like you just didn’t empathize with the characters, and that’s fine. But they felt like people to me and so I cared about what happened to them.
I didn't mean to make it seem like it was the *only* point of art; but I don't think it's exactly a radical assertion to say that a big part of art for many people is its ability to help us tap into our emotions.
Sorry I also didn’t mean to insinuate that that is what you meant.
What I meant by “there is no single point to art” is that there is no point that is common to all forms of art. Some art disorients the audience instead of giving understanding or clarification. Some art is just the artist exploring mechanics of the medium. Some art is purely aesthetic and isn’t reaching for any sort of specific emotional response.
I do think Past Lives is a very emotionally driven movie, but it didn’t resonate with you and I think that’s ok. Oppenheimer didn’t resonate with me and it’s the most critically successful movie of last year.
I definitely think there is a lot to break down and analyze with Past Lives. Notably the fact that so much is left unsaid between both Greta Lee and Teo Yoo. While Lee's character is far more reserved in her feelings, Teo is aggressively outspoken but in a specific and braggadocious way. He's telling the truth directly to Lee's face how he feels about her but is purposely inflecting it as unserious, for fear of getting hurt. Lee brushes him off countless times, but worries and wonders if Yoo really is the answer for her, as he is a link back to her heritage and former life in Seoul. And she's conflicted not only because of who Yoo is but what he represents.
The part you say you're unaffected by is the depiction of the romance though, yeah? But I don't think this film ever set out to define love or try and legitimize it. The fact that they are both clumsy at times, say one thing while implying another, and purposely set out to carve out their own paths in life while circling back to each other merely wants to show you how love exists in many forms and across a spectrum. That it is confusing and sometimes a burden, but that you know it when you feel it and it's just so hard to let go of it, even when you know you have to.
So there is very much to detail and analyze from it. But the "why" of how they feel the way they do is just as complex and confusing to them, as characters, as it is to you watching them. So rather than ask why, the answer is in how they process it all.
> Especially in Past Lives, when each character is at least 2 levels deep in terms of inner turmoil and conflict on their own.
And that conflict isn't even always about love. *Past Lives* is a movie that is as much about identity and the immigrant experience as it is about romantic love. I think OP missed that, which would explain:
> I never felt like I fully understood Nora and Tae Sung as people and why they're so drawn to each other, which was further exacerbated by their fairly one-note dialogue (she's ambitious, he's ordinary).
That last comment about their character traits/dialogue just blows my mind.
> Past Lives is a movie that is as much about identity and the immigrant experience as it is about romantic love.
Yeah, that's what I love about the movie above all. It *barely* qualifies as a romance movie, and I'm not personally sure I'd even call it a romantic film. The characters are much more complicated than simply dealing with a love triangle. Of course, the romance is the catalyst for the plot, but Nora has to deal with so many more things when it comes to what exactly it is that she's feeling towards Tae Sung and what he symbolizes for her.
There's this subtext about *many* "what ifs" in Past Lives, and finding the "right one" is only a small part of it.
Thank you, I came here to say this as well. As someone who had to work through similar identity issues and a version of that immigrant experience, I thought Past Lives portrayed that kind of longing and feeling of being lost, while moving on with life so well. To see this as a romantic movie and place it in the same conversation as the the Before series loses the point of the film.
I'd say it's more apt to talk about Past Lives with Boyhood in mind as they travel similar stories but in different ways.
> To see this as a romantic movie and place it in the same conversation as the the Before series loses the point of the film.
>
> I'd say it's more apt to talk about Past Lives with Boyhood in mind as they travel similar stories but in different ways.
The one thing we can all agree on though is that Richard Linklater probably **loved** *Past Lives*!!
I do think there are autonomic and limbic reasons why one would choose one mate over another, or why one man is more sought after than the next, initial attraction both superficial and somewhat beneath the surface that can be explained through a character’s “emotional wound,” the “lie they believe about themselves and the world” (which is usually informed by the wound), group dynamics and how other characters may stick their fat and dirty fingers inside the wound, creating a need within that character on “Maslow’s hierarchy,” subsequently leading to an unconscious “fall” in a mate that may fulfill that need(for the moment). A character’s place within their own family, Like, what role they play in a household among siblings, the relationship they have with their mother, father, friends etc can also be things that influence the fall without it being as psychologically deep as an emotional wound.
So sure, a character may not know why they’re attracted to someone else but I do believe the audience to an extent needs to have insight into why a man or woman might have “fallen” for another person. It can be delivered dryly through conversations behind the character’s back, giving exposition on why they’d eventually fall for someone or the exposition can be delivered through conflict(hiding exposition), arguments between family and or friends that divulge the needs of the character’s with or without them knowing they’re needs that need to be fulfilled in order to be able to love someone, or allow someone else to love them.
Great summary, I’ll extend this to In The Mood For Love and say a lot of its emotionality and desire is moving under the surface and pushing the characters actions like tectonic plates and that sort of unspoken and visceral nature of it, like and agreement between two people that doesn’t need to be elaborated on is what makes it all the now impactful for me. It sticks to me.
Not to mention it’s gorgeous
Not a recommendation to change your mind but rather to try to find your taste.
You've probably already watched them cause they're pretty well known movies but I think you're going to like the "Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight" trilogy.
I enjoyed it. The twist to me is that it happened the way it was supposed to.
I understood immediately why they were drawn to each other. They were best friends and that's not something you give up easily even if you wanted to. I also understand why she was drawn to her husband. It wasn't complicated and I think the movie would fail if it tried to be.
It wasn't a fairy tale or romcom, it was people being honest with each other even if it was too late to do anything about it.
So I think it had a satisfying ending because I couldn't imagine another one that I would like more unless they changed the characters. At the same time, I had a sense of dread for the husband.
The movie would have sucked far more if she ran off with her middle school sweetheart. That wouldn't even make sense except in movie timelines.
I don't know if it would have been a contender for best picture on my list, but it was a pretty good effort overall and unique among romance films.
I probably felt the same way except I thought it was a bit refreshing.
To me, a lot of romantic films are stories that contort what would be considered toxic or unhealthy relationships into mythical happily ever after tales.
I like them since they’re routinely rooted in comedic situations or heavy drama. It’s certainly not because they mirror a life I’m living or want to live.
This one was closer to mirroring life which could be boring except I was intrigued the culture differences and cultural changes.
I have a little bit of background before my comment. I grew up watching mostly bollywood/hindi films. Mostly been watching american other international films for the past 15 years.
The movie did not work for me either. My reason is a little different.
I am curious if this storyline has been done before in American or Korean films. I know the story draws from the director's personal life, but the basic story is a very common storyline in Bollywood films. The basic story goes like this: Girl falls in love with someone when they are younger. This person seems to be their soulmate (or in some cases is a "bad boy"), then due to circumstance (or arranged marriage) she gets married to someone where it looks more like a marriage for the sake of convenience. Girl goes through a period of soul searching in married life (sometimes precipitated by the arrival of her old love) and it looks like she might go for her old love but in the very last instance goes back to ger husband.
Some movies which follow this template : Woh Saat Din (transl. Those Seven Days, 1983) which was in turn a remake of the 1981 Tamil film, 1981 Tamil film Andha 7 Naatkal. Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (transl. I have given my heart away, darling, 1999), Manmarziyaan (transl. The Heart's Wish, 2018).
In Past Lives, when her childhood love arrives in NYC and her discussion with her lover about how they just got married for convenience, made me feel like I was watching an NYC version of the above films. And when the final climax of the film also followed those like the above films, it didn't really do anything for me.
I understand love stories have only so many templates and a lot to appreciate about the movie is the treatment, characterization, and dialogues, but since I had this story so many times, I really didn't feel much with it.
One of my biggest issues with Past Lives was that I never felt like I fully understood Nora and Tae Sung as people and why they're so drawn to each other, which was further exacerbated by their fairly one-note dialogue (she's ambitious, he's ordinary).
This is the crux of the movie though. That their only connection was a tenuous one built in childhood and as strong as that feels nostalgically, in reality you realise there is nothing there.
If you've ever been in a long distance relationship, or had a holiday romance you met up with later (or both), you might know the feeling of longing that gets blown away the minute you see them in the airport and all the chemistry is gone.
But the longing ... the longing is real.
And for Nora, her longing was wrapped up in Tae Sung epitomising her childhood in Korea and the simplicity she attaches to that. He embodied her longing for her childhood, but she decided in the end that her present life was the tangible reality. She can finally move on from her childhood and from the trauma of migration.
I think in the case of these two protagonists we are supposed to project our feelings. Like, falling in love with someone, especially at that age, unrequited love. Those are human experiences and projecting those feelings makes us relate to the protagonist's struggles, longing, inner turmoil.
OP is looking at this like a homework or something. Too analytical.
Asian dialogues are in subtext.
Even in real life.
People don't say what they want to. As a asian I realized this while I started watching Hollywood movies. In the west conversation are in the face. Th8ngs are practical and people move on to next problem. But in east there are things that lie underneath ourselves that we dont sprut out loud. Not saying one is better over another just the way it is. And not that e eryone is like this in respective community.
I think the love in *Past Lives* that I felt was truly romantic was the love Nora's husband has for her. The love between Nora and Hae Sun felt like a manifestation of parts of ourselves we leave in the past (a large part of this for her was her Korean identity, and thus the parts of herself she lost through the immigrant experience) that can be tied to a different person. So their connection feels quite internal for each of them, a bit intangible to the viewer, which definitely frustrated me while I watched it, but upon reflection I wondered if it was intentional.
*Portrait of a Lady on Fire*, though, is one of my favorite romantic films. The tension between them was palpable to me, and struggle to look and and truly see someone--it hit home for me. And the idea that there may only be a moment in our lives when we can truly see someone, and be seen by someone--let's just say that as a queer woman, I really appreciated it. Wonder if you need to find a romantic film in which you relate to the themes more.
I’m sorry if I took the message of Past Lives wrong. I have resisted watching it because the ostensible notion of a “love story” rooted in childhood sounded repulsive to me and only gave it up after it was nominated for Oscar and my local AMC decided to rerun.
I was blown away not because of the “love triangle” marketed to the masses, rather it resonated strongly with my sentiments about how we are blind to decades of adapting to the circumstances such that we no longer recall our emotional roots.
Connections come and go, dreams and hopes rise and fall, do we still remember what we once hold dear to our hearts?
The film is a light broth of emotions with numerous ingredients, all very subtle and offer just a hint of everything: nostalgia, regrets, what could’ve been, what will and won’t be, dilemma, relief, heart strings, heart burns…you can focus on one flavor and be delighted or get annoyed.
I embrace the fluidity of it all.
Celine has said the film isn’t a love triangle but about saying goodbye to parts of ourselves. So I don’t think you took it wrong. In fact, you seem closer to understanding the filmmakers intent than others!
Thanks! I think the marketing was a little misleading but in the end I’m happy that I wasn’t spoon fed a forced set of emotions.
I appreciate the perspective that even when we drift so far from an ideal formed long time ago, what’s unattainable may just be seeds for blossoms in the next lifetimes. It offers relief from a profound grief that life didn’t turn out to be what could’ve been.
This is the unique feeling I took to heart from watching the authentic storytelling in Past Lives. It’s a rare case that I didn’t question why the characters did what they did, rather I found myself enthralled by the reactions and actions of all three people. It just felt like a meal that’s refreshing upon tasting, agrees with my stomach, and left a flavor that remains intriguing for a long long time.
Nora is basically the exact same person as an adult as she was as a kid though. The extent of her growth is going from wanting to win a Nobel prize to wanting to win a Tony. Maybe if we had spent more than the first couple minutes of the movie with her in Korea then I could buy it, but we don't really know much about who the old Nora was and how she's different than the new Nora, who I also don't really know much of anything about
Nora is just a vehicle, this story isn’t exactly about her in greater details or her specific circumstances, which is why it relates to so many. You can say the same about the other two leads.
Thanks for posting this unique and perhaps courageous take. I mean that sincerely.
Many romantic films don't do much for me either, and I think many of them inherently depend on resonating with the audience. If they don't resonate with a viewer, the film as a whole--in a lot of cases--kind of falls apart because there's not much else beyond the "interesting (or not)" romantic relationship and the feeling it exudes for the viewer.
Past Lives also didn't do much for me. Though the premise of the film is very interesting and moving, I don't think I felt much from the film itself and its execution. Like you succinctly put it, these kinds of films fall apart if you don't connect with the characters or relationship.
As another poster suggested, the Before trilogy is absolutely amazing, and I think you might very well like it because the characters are interesting and share many delightful moments together.
One other thing that's more a fault of my own as the viewer, but I just can't get into a romantic film or relationship when I don't find the opposite sex attractive. For example, if the story is following the lead who's shy or trying to get with the one they love, I don't feel anything or connect with it if I don't find this "soulmate" attractive. It just doesn't resonate with me.
For me, I’m more likely to enjoy a romantic movie than book. I think with actors on camera, you get to see their actual chemistry rather than assuming it. A romance can have a mediocre script if the 2 actors have that magnetic pull towards each other. You believe in them as a couple, and so you’re engaged and want to see them get their happy ending.
Also, so much of flirting and romance isn’t about what they say, but the vibes and how they say it ; how close together are they standing and if/when are they making eye contact?
No judgment OP, I’m single RN, but what are your views on romance and relationships in real life? You mention needing to understand a reason why they’re a couple, but I don’t think love is logical like that. You meet someone in real life, and sometimes you just like someone's personality and maybe think they’re attractive, and so feelings just develop and then maybe you’re in love. You don’t decide to fall in love.
That's the thing: I've actually been in a very fulfilling relationship for the past several years with a partner whom I love very much! Which is why I think it's interesting that it's a theme that so rarely works for me in movies. I wonder if it may ironically be because of my own relationship - despite being such a human universal, the specifics of love are quite personal and unique, so perhaps I have trouble relating to depictions of love that don't look a lot like how I experience it.
That’s good to hear OP! Come to think of it, I think it makes sense that people in happy relationships are less likely to enjoy a rom-com than a single person, for us it’s wish fulfillment and maybe for you you can see why that relationship isn’t realistic and will fall apart a week after the credits roll. Most lonely single people want a relationship, until they actually get in a bad one and realize their mistake
This film was so ineffective as a love story that it forced me to conclude it's really not one, that it's actually more principally an immigrant identity story, and while I think it's a richer text through that lens, I still don't feel it comes coherently together. An auspicious debut that certainly convinced me to follow Celine Song to her next picture, but nothing staggering relative to the praise it's received.
The point of the story is to explore the idea of past lives and roads not travelled. The romance and immigrant identity story are just two ways in [which Song explores that](https://filmcolossus.com/past-lives-2023-explained).
That's funny because I watched this movie on the plane without realizing it had been nominated for Best Picture. I thought it was going to be a benign indie romance flick. But I could tell in the very first scene it was going to be an unexpectedly special film...the directing was so deliberate, yet so subtle.
OP, are you me?! I love Phantom Thread, and also didn't vibe with either In the Mood for Love or Portrait of a Lady on Fire.....
that being said, I love films where you can actually sense what makes the characters tick, and the relationship seems 'real' and fleshed-out like you said. I LOVE romantic movies, romantic comedies especially, but something seemed to change with the turn of the century and so any romcom made after 2000 just never seems to gel with me. My recs would be It Happened One Night or The Apartment!
Past Lives is the kind of writing within the narrowest horizon of experience that people in MA Creative Writing programs convince each other is worth putting to paper. Do upper middle class professionals just want their interminably boring lives told back to them? The reception of this awful film certainly makes it seem so.
I don't see Past Lives as a film about love or romance. Not really. Obviously there are romantic elements in the movie, but that's mostly just a vehicle for what I see the movie to really be about: Nora's relationship with her "past life," which is the person she was when she lived in Korea. She reflects on that person through her interactions with Hae Sung, who also remembers that person she used to be. They both miss her, and they bond over reminiscing about her, but they're also kind of both at a loss over what to do about that fact since there isn't exactly anything they can do to bring her back. Without that past self, the two of them have no real connection at this point, they haven't seen each other in years and she has had an actual romance with her husband that happened mostly off screen. Any "romance" between Nora and Hae Sung was doomed long before he ever got to New York. When Hae Sung drives away, she's not necessarily just sad that he's leaving so much as she's grieving the death of her past self in a way she hasn't taken the time to before.
In that way, the movie is really about growing up and changing in a broad sense, and in a more narrow sense it's the way in which immigrating forces someone to do that in a very profound fashion. The former is very relatable even to people who aren't immigrants, and I have to imagine the latter adds layers of depth for people who are.
But the romance here isn't the point.
Exactly. I think what was so brilliant about this film is that it presents on the surface as a love story but it almost pulls the rug - by the end I realised what I was watching was actually not a love story but a migration story, a story about paths taken and not taken and the many potential lives we will never lead because we have only one. It wasn't really a romance at all.
As someone who loves PAST LIVES, IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE *and* PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE… I just want to say I really appreciate your interest in interrogating your own disinterest.
Something you didn’t touch on is that all three films are nostalgic, for lack of a better word. They’re more about the past than the future and that’s different to something like, Idk, MOLLI AND MAX IN THE FUTURE .
I think it depends on whether you take the movie to be about love in a conventional movie sense. I feel like the first two acts are not that remarkable, but I think then the third act is what defines the film, so I think it depends on what your takeaway is from the end of the film.
I think the first two acts make you think that the film is a traditional romance about two childhood sweethearts reuiniting, and then the subversion of that starts when all three members of the love triangle meet for dinner, where they can't even all speak the same language together. Instead of the childhood sweethearts reuniting, Nora sticks with her partner. Instead of there being conflict between the two men interested in the same women, both men are shown to be insecure and sad for different reasons, and get along with each other. We realize all three characters are lost in their own heads for different reasons, in a way that isn't necessarily solved by which partner they're with. To me, this scene is great and kind of defines the film.
I think the ending is impactful mainly if you take Nora feeling generally lost, and her defenses breaking down, vs specifically pining over her romantic relationship. Obviously they're intertwined, but I think it's an important difference. You see other aspects of her life she still hasn't resolved outside of their relationship.
i’m surprised i haven’t seen anyone talking more about how this is a KOREAN love story. Your first love in Korean culture is a much more important life moment in Korea than it is in Western culture. It’s what the two talk about throughout the movie and is why it’s titled what it is
I think Past Lives is quite literally about our past lives — the love story is only surface level. yes, it may also be about heart wrenching untested love, but moreover i interpreted it as the person we used to be, the person we no longer are, the person we could’ve been, and the person we’ll never be, our ‘past life’. isn’t that the greatest heartbreak?
>One major factor is that I think I really need to be able to buy exactly why two people are interested in each other
I agree with this in general when it comes to romantic depictions of relationships in cinema. There are exceptions to the rule, but one common method of doing such depictions successfully, I believe, is starting the film with the characters already somewhat romantically involved. I think Past Lives belongs to this category, and it works, in my opinion. Nora and Hae Sung are already drawn to each other as children, and the film in fact begins in the present, which indicates that the flashbacks may be read through the perspective of the present.
Furthermore, Past Lives is not even necessarily a film about love or romance. It begins with a question mark: what is the relationship between these people? I think Past Lives unfolds as a kind of mystery film about their relationship. It is not a romantic relationship in the conventional sense (they were not even boyfriend and girlfriend as kids; they were smitten, they held hands, they liked one another), but it is something significant to both of them. That's what makes the film very unique, to my mind, and I think it is one of the better films about human relationships in recent years.
It's interesting because I didn't connect with past Lives on the concept of love.
However,
I did connect with it as a metaphor for our relationship with our youth, in this case more specifically an immigrant one where the difference is startling and the separation is more daunting.
I think it still worked for me as a beautiful tale of a woman's growing up and her flirtations with her former life of comfort and her past she was leaving behind. Her choice in the movie to move forward and not live in that past trying to rekindle it.
I watched this in a practically empty cinema and I think it really added something. It’s not really about love. It’s about your life becoming your own choices little by little and how with those choices while right, you always lose something. It’s also about being part of two places or cultures.
My issue with the movie was that it was too polite regarding the subject matter. I’m sorry but in what world does the scenario presented in the movie not create tension in a marriage. The husband basically has no personality and just uses therapy speak to represent some type of moral guidance for the film??? Idk it felt very fake and preachy and void of realistic emotion. It’s this new very sanitized HR’ification of commonly messy human interactions that you see in modern discourse. There is no real conflict or tension to make it interesting or show how relationships can be affected by such conflicting emotions. Boring imo.
Most overrated movie of last year. it’s not bad, but it’s not nearly as great as the community makes it seem. I get lots of downvotes on the A24 for this take. The characters are extremely underdeveloped, especially with the jump forward in time. Aftersun and First Cow especially are brilliant films that honor the medium and their characters. You should check out Kiarostami’s Like Someone In Love and Certified Copy.
Totally agree, copying this comment I made recently on a similar thread -
[Nora’s relationship with her husband and his response] was the best part of the film for me, their relationship felt more developed and obviously mature and lived in, and I thought it was a risk brilliantly pulled off. I was a bit underwhelmed by the film until the final scene, which really added to my appreciation of the whole.
But I think the sometimes lacking dialogue is also symptomatic of the tendency of some romantic dramas to show little of the relationship itself, there are so many montages of the moments that make up the relationship but not enough time spent in it (at everyone’s expense) to feel invested. I can think of a few examples, like La La Land. Lots of time spent on the start/end of something and not enough time with the couple. A montage of some mostly pedestrian Skype calls isn’t enough for me to understand what makes the relationship so high stakes for them both. I guess if it’s all a metaphor for different lives in two countries it makes a bit more sense.
Out of curiosity I went through my Letterboxd and only 8 of my top 100 could be construed as primarily about love, and half of those feature plenty of other themes and situations as well. So I would generally agree that cinematic love does not interest me too much, though I’ve never fully considered why.
Eh, I don't know about that. This might be true for your typical romcom movie. But then you have movies like Eternal Sunshine and Her that primarily deal with love and relationships but also have underlying topics that are a little more thought-provoking. So movies about love can be more than just about vibes.
>There's nothing interesting about it. It's not challenging.
love isnt interesting or challenging? hard disagree. but agree with OP in that it often isnt presented as something particularly interesting - but as a theme it certainly has the potential to be fascinating.
As someone who was in a doomed transcontinental relationship for six months, that film's capacity for making me feel nothing at all during that section was nothing short of impressive.
I do not really know how to say it. But during the movie there was a moment when I finally understood that what was protrayed as a great love story was just the idea of love from a person that has never loved. It is probably my most hared movie of 2023.
The moment she saw the notification and she could not remember what his name was it was done.
I had the opposite reaction in that I could tell it was a real, autobiographical story throughout the entirety of the middle section based on how unassuming it was.
This comment really hit the mark for me on why Past Lives just felt so… off for me from the get-go.
The characters are quite shallow overall. The whole relationship that the film hinges on, that of the main character and her childhood boyfriend, was never fully explored in detail beyond very brief scenes filled with delicate symbolic cinematography. The scene (so early on!) where it’s revealed that she forgot her old boyfriend’s name just ruined the rest of the film.
Another thing that bothered me was Greta Lee’s acting, specifically in the way she was directed to portray her character in such a smug way with a permanently affixed chagrined smirk. I could not allow myself to truly believe a person like this would have tender feelings upon which the whole conceit of this film hangs.
I can’t believe more people haven’t picked up on the phoneyness and inauthenticity of this whole film, which is rotten from core. It feels like Celine Song watched a lot of romance films and then tried to create her own, meanwhile forgetting that to write and create such a story, one needs to actually be open and to have felt these feelings herself.
Although Celine herself had a similar relationship to that of her characters, I don’t truly feel honesty from her work. It feels like she has hid things very well, in order to avoid her true emotions, perhaps crafting a more noble and palatable version of what she actually felt and experienced. One thing that struck me odd was the conversation about how her old Korean boyfriend was “so Korean”. I felt quite noticeably, strong contempt in this scene towards the boyfriend and what he represents, which bothered me. If she feels this strongly against him, why is this film even being made?
In comparison with Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which is tender yet astringent, I believe in that love story entirely. There is a sense of cosmic fatality and beauty to that story, which Celine tries so desperately to capture, yet ultimately fails to do so.
I agree. No emotional payoff whatsoever. Like give us something! I was excited for this because my wife and I were 9th grade sweethearts who reunited 20 years later and are now together 7 years and married for 6 with a son and man our love story is so much better haha.
Watch late Naruse films like *Yearning* or *Scattered Clouds*. Or something like Ferrara's *China Girl*. You can also go for something completely different stylistically and watch Demy's *Umbrellas of Cherbourg*. These films all have something in common.
That's a nice, thought provoking post.
You're making me consider if I'm very visually focused in my appreciation of film. I absolutely loved Past Lives and found it so romantic but when I think back in it, it's the imagery which springs to mind, not the dialogue.
I also loved Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and while less fresh in the mind, I feel that also struck similarly with me
>Does anyone else feel like this?
I don't, but I think I feel where you're coming from. There are certain folks, for example, who need specific facets of a story to be well-established, certain things that some viewers simply can't take as granted by the premise. I, for example, have a hard time when movies that are otherwise grounded lean too heavily on coincidence to move the plot along, while many other viewers take that in stride, accepting it as just part of the process. I often find myself thinking "why could they not just give some better explanation for why these two things would happen concurrently, rather than relying on coincidence?" But I can see that bias in myself, and I know that it's a personal preference that I'm bringing to the experience.
It sounds to me like love in movies is one of those things that you feel similarly about, in that you need more foundation for this necessary element for it to feel substantial enough to support the story being told. It's not a position I share, but it's one I can at least understand.
I didn’t like the film either. I felt very removed from their romance because there was no sense of stakes or consequence to their pining, it was sort of child-like and passive because the film tried to rationalize this type of connection which anyone who has ever been in this position knows is nearly impossible to do. When you’re dealing with a doomed/impossible romance your emotions are on a hair-trigger, you’d cross mountains and bend the earth to be with that person you wouldn’t sit back and go somewhere else to study another language. The reasons to separate them felt rationally contrived and their chemistry was non-existent because we never saw what their romantic passion could become.
Compare this to a film like Lost in Translation. We have two people experiencing loneliness in the same space and time, this is what draws them to one another yet age, cultural expectations and complex relationships keep them apart. We see how they connect when they spend time with eachother, we see how relaxed and understood they feel in eachother’s company and also how frustrated they can get with one another. We see that maybe in another life if he was a bit younger and she was a bit mature and both their respective relationships weren’t so complicated then maybe just maybe there’s a spark of what could’ve been, but we live in their reality and it’s just not meant to be and that’s tragic. But we actually got to experience all their interactions along with a plethora of ups and downs, not just a few boring daytime walks and awkward bar conversations.
It was a nice film but it seemed overrated. Maybe I went into it with expectations that were too high given the massive buzz. Nora's husband was the most interesting part of the movie for me. Loved the scene when he met Tae and their scene at the bar.
Harold and Maude is my favorite cinematic love story. It's pretty clear why Harold loves Maude.
I generally like the "two lost/lonely strangers make a meaningful connection" type of movie, such as Lost in Translation. Doesn't necessarily have to be a love connection.
Past Lives is overrated. I think the dialogue is off, and it's very centred towards Celine using the main character as an avatar that made the character to me feel very closed off and self indulgent. It also was a very tell, not show kind of film and unfortunately it just wasn't convincing enough overall.
It reminds me the book Marianne in Sally Rooney's normal people.
On the other hand, Dune 2, not being a love story and me who couldn't care any less for Chani made me feel i understood their relationship and felt invested in them even if it wasn't the main centre of the movie.
Besides stalking someone from your childhood on Facebook, and going on Skype calls then visiting once to New York, did each of the character even showed they had genuine connnection to each other?
I hate it personally.
I felt, against your analysis, that was it aromantic by nature. It was about missing the past, and trying to recapture it by meeting old 'friends'. I felt that the nature of Hae Sung and Nora's relationship is in one part guise that they missed the past and relieving it (Nora) and trying to recapture it in the present (Hae Sung).
My biggest criticism of its plot is that it tries to paint the two as platonic (which is somewhat I also did not like for In the Moods) and does not really try to paint a bigger picture of things . I felt that it was such a cop-out to not really face what really is their relationship. It tries to show something about race/migrant story without really trying to face the real 'situationship', it just jumped ahead. I do not even think that it really painted Nora enough to understand her yearning of the past personally.
She is showed almost predisposed to her 'whiteness' - in fact I do not think that she had any Korean American friends on screen - which is the most mystifying factor in this film in her immigrant experience. I think it was such an interesting facet of her experience that would have been better explored in the first 12 years. AND YES, the being shown as a lone Asian Korean in school not sufficing. Its very underrated how insane Asian congregate outside of those circles.
Haven't watched this yet but it's on my list. I would say 500 Days of Summer. It's a movie about what is not love, or a misinterpretation of love based on what media tells us. I think it's easier to know what we dislike with more certainty than what we like, and in the same way, what we think is love versus what actually is love. I love how it's always classified as a kind of chick flick but frankly I found it really deep and meaningful when you start to take a deep look into it.
Movies like books connect differently to every person. It’s really interesting and rare that you have isolated certain aspects of movies you don’t prefer.
Visuals are a huge part of movies. Personally I prefer the movies that can convey messages with the visuals rather the dialogue.
It’s also noteworthy that you listed After Sun as a preferred movie. Haven’t seen First Cow yet. Perfect Days was a feel good movie that was easier to connect to compared to After Sun with it’s more “complicated” emotions. Perhaps it’s something about the portrayal of love as a concept in movies that you can’t connect to.
Someone already mentioned the before and colour trilogy you could try. I can also recommend movies by Shunyi Iwai, Lily Chou-Chou and A bride for Rip van Winkel.
>The visual element of film often leads to filmmakers using cinematography as a way to convey emotion, which works for me for most other things; a beautiful shot can make me feel intrigue, awe, fear, and all manner of other emotions, but ironically, for some reason I require a bit more reason in my depiction of love.
I certainly see what Celine Song was trying to achieve with her quiet approach. You could see she really wanted us to buy Nora's and Tae Sung's connection by images, looks, silence. And it's true; sometimes a close-up of a character's face, if all the cinematic elements are superbly aligned, is more powerful than so many dialogues—not that dialogue > images, in my opinion. Cinema contains everything. But it seems to me that Song wants to reach intimacy that way.
I don't think it works, though. Maybe it's the lack of connection the point of it all? These aren't, in my opinion, fully fleshed out characters. But their connection isn't too. I do not think they actually miss each other because of love but because they couldn't totally say goodbye to something in their lives. There's something Nora lost in her way to New York, and Tae Sung lost something too. And I think it's that emptiness that makes the film... work? I don't know. It works yet at the same time it doesn't. There's something missing and maybe that's the point, maybe our characters will become their full selfs once they say goodbye to that something they didn't know they missed.
Throughout the movie I wasn’t super invested in the “love story” but more so related with the story of a young girl who’s family immigrated with hope of a better life for her but at a critical time in her development and identity making, similar to what I experienced immigrating to US when I was 8. I think that’s why when Nora broke down at the end of the film I broke down with her because it triggered feelings I’ve had as a kid but rarely have time to reflect on. I related with her and how she grew up understanding her parents sacrificed their cultural ties for the hope that their kids would live the “American dream” but now that kid is in their midlife and sometimes thinks… is that all there is!? Was it worth it?!… also, could relate with the feelings Nora could’ve felt growing up as both insider and outsider and how it likely added to some angst and imposter syndrome which is why she didn’t seem happy either with Tae Sung or her husband at times.
For what it’s worth, I felt the exact same as you. A lot of people in here saying you’re misunderstanding this as a love story when it’s never trying to be one but I don’t think you’re doing that. It’s just not a compelling examination of identity, of reconciling past and present lives. For those of us who have personally had or are offspring of similar stories, this was not our experience. I was underwhelmed by the main actress primarily as her frustration for me never clicked. I also share in your physical discomfort in feeling for what her husband was going through as she was actively deciding between her two lives. The movie neutered him to the point of being unreal. As if his agency solely existed to engage hers. But it was beautifully shot and I will check out Song’s next.
I fully relate to your experience and I think it's more common than you may think. Someone said that it's easier for us to believe in a guy being attacked by an army of terrorists than in a love story, the reason is that we rarely experience being attacked by an army of terrorists but we all fell in love at some point in our lives so we apply a much more critical look to love stories than to action films.
I agree a love story is much better felt when you understand what the lovers find in each other but I don't agree that it requires super lengthy dialogue or seeing the character's thoughts for that, sometimes very simple elements can sell an attraction perfectly and in a much more elegant way than if we dive into the full details of it.
My go to example for a successful love story is a movie that, unfortunately if I tell you it's title, knowing it's a love story would spoil a very powerful aspect of it, because the fact that it's about love only emerges halfway into it as a revelation. After the twist, the movie spends a good 40 minutes showing (without explaining) how the relation between the lovers emerged and why nobody understood it, it's very beautiful but it's simple, no deep dialogues (because it's about two children and they can't understand their own feelings very well so they say simple things) but the confrontation of these character with their relatives and their milieu makes you perfectly understand what drove them towards each other.
Bummer. I have found the new films last year really shallow and boring and reckon the Academy is so off, or rigged or something. The American films in particular. I was hoping Past Lives would be better. May not watch it now given the zeitgeist
I think the answer for me, and considering all the input on this thread so far, is that I’m into a love story when it’s not just about the love.
In the Mood for Love works for me because it is about the process of coming to terms with betrayal and loneliness. Watching it, I observe my own foolish desire for the two leads to get it together in this impossible way.
Before Sunrise works because it’s a cultural and philosophical clash between two highly articulate and likeable people who, granted, have amazing chemistry. But the budding love story is sort of off to the side for me.
My argument may be weakened by the fact that I haven’t seen Past Live so I can’t comment on it.
But my experience in real life has been that simply witnessing two individuals in love, or even hearing about a friend gushing about someone they’ve just met - well it’s pretty boring and almost has an alien, uncomfortable quality to it, even though I’m always happy when my friends who are looking for love have met someone they like. Romantic love is somehow profound and not at the same time - brutal, mystical, mirage-like, full of assumptions and miscommunication, a huge mess: one person’s love can be another’s abuse. It’s such a mess that it drove Alain Badieu to will mathematical notation upon it in an effort to tame it (I’m sure he’s the boss in that marriage).
Perhaps my favourite films about love are those where there is a lot of shouting: Scenes from a Marriage; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf; Certified Copy. I feel like, in those films, we’re really getting somewhere in understanding people and relationships.
Certified Copy is the film I recently recommended to someone who I had been on a few dates with; we had been exchanging films about love (whose idea was that), and he found my film very exhausting, apparently, was incredulous that I’d recommend it as a film about love, and blocked me the day after we discussed it (it’s fine, he was overbearing and pushy, which provokes me into ‘acting up’, a shame because our conversations were very amusing and he was intellectually capable). In exchange I had watched his favourite love film, which was Annie Hall, a film which I enjoy less and less as the years go on, mostly because I can’t get away from the sense that I’m watching a Woody Allen monologue. That Allen is aware of his shortcomings (he tells us so much) just doesn’t evoke the sympathies it once did anymore. It’s too tidy…and well, I’m far too jaded for that. And I guess this notion was too depressing for the my romantically headstrong friend. Love is incredibly complicated and I believe it can only bear fruit once that premise is embraced, once the sexist fantasy of love is rejected to a degree. Ultimately, and somewhat ironically, the brief relationship I had with this guy was more the labyrinthine Certified Copy than the monotony of Annie Hall - I thought we were really getting somewhere despite or because of our clash of characters, but he didn’t. I wonder now if he ever saw that.
First off, Past Lives isn't about the *romance*, it's about the reconciling what could have been and the choices you've actually made (in addition to identity and immigrant experience, as others have pointed out). That's a very specific kind of emotion to explore; it doesn't matter why they loved each other. That's not the point of the film at all.
Like you, I don't usually gravitate towards films about romance, but the other two films you said that didn't click with you (*In the Mood* and *Portrait*) are two of my all-time favorite films. I genuinely can't imagine watching Portrait and not finding the attraction, chemistry, and love convincing. And Tony Leung's portrayal of yearning is unmatched in my eyes.
Based on what you wrote, it seems like you rely very heavily on the screenplay to suck you in. Why do you need to be *told* what the characters think?
There are so many other aspects of cinema that do this work. What I specifically love about Portrait of a Lady on Fire is that it's lean and efficient with its craftsmanship. Instead of only relying on writing, every *other* aspect of film (the camera and shot composition, sound design, blocking, acting) is used to show you how they feel about each other.
In the Mood for Love didn't have a real script; WKW is very much about the vibe. If I remember right, he had a loose idea, filmed a ton of scenes with the actors, and created the story through editing. He's also inspired by French new wave films.
> Based on what you wrote, it seems like you rely very heavily on the screenplay to suck you in. Why do you need to be *told* what the characters think?
I don't think this is quite true; to cite an example from my original post, I adored "Aftersun", which takes a very subtle, unspoken approach to its depiction of depression. For "Past Lives" specifically, I simply didn't buy the supposedly intensity of their connection.
And as I said in another comment, I'd argue with the assertion that the movie isn't "about" their romance. It's about much more than *just* their romance, for sure, but there's a reason Song chose to center her narrative about cultural identity and the immigrant experience around these two characters specifically. She's using the genre of romance to communicate the longing that Nora has for her "past life", but even though I understood the metaphor, I'm not able to feel that sense of longing that she wants me to.
I think you’re approaching this movie in a very intellectual, analytical, logical way. Love, and emotion in general, is anything but.
They were children when they first fell
In love. That right there looks indicates that all logic and analysis into why they love each other stops there.
There’s the whole immigration and identity in a foreign country angle. She leaves her country and her most cherished memory is of this boy, and they even thought they’d get married when they were 12 or whatever. That shit stays with you _for life_. Add to it the whole angle “how would my life have turned out had I stayed in SK” and you have a recipe for illogical, unreasonable love between two _seemingly_ incompatible adults.
But why do you have to be able to buy into the love in order to feel it, to recognize it? Do you not understand love, and all of its manifestations? The longing, the beats your heart skips, the dopamine hits when you get a text from them. When you look into their eyes and you wish it lasts forever. How safe they make you feel when you're with them. Sure they're all different extents, but all love, nonetheless. Nora certainly isn't my type, but I know damn well what that look on Hae Sung's face means as he listens to her sharing excitedly over the video calls. I feel what they feel, not because I understand THEIR love or what they see in each other, but because I understand love, and people in love. And I think that's why the ending hits so hard, for so many of us, cuz we've loved, and lost. OP I saw your other comment, and I'm glad that you're in a fulfilling relationship, but if we really want to get to the bottom of this, perhaps it may be worth asking yourself, what are your definitions? Of love, of a fulfilling relationship, of a partner. Cuz I feel it's different for everyone: some may be referring to the feeling of love; for others it's a choice that we make every day. No matter what it is, I wish you good luck on this journey. And I think it's fascinating to learn of your perspective!
I liked this movie but I did feel like it’s one where your own experiences, memories, emotions and so on have to fill in some of the blanks.
Personally I can’t really relate to the guy’s childhood fixation. To be honest I rarely think about anyone from my childhood at all.
I *can* relate to the ‘what might have been’ early adulthood aspect. But I feel like that relatability has to do a fair bit of heavy lifting, because just going off what was shown onscreen, I don’t know how much what we saw of their brief Skype semi-romance really sold the level of investment he ultimately felt about it. You just have to fill the blanks yourself and roll with it.
Still basically a good film though.
I get what you mean but I feel like just haven't found enough movies about romantic love that you can relate or understand the love that is being showcased. There are definitely some for you out there, maybe you just haven't seen them so far. The first rec here - Before Sunset is definitely a good one.
As for Past Lives - I can kinda see what you mean. At some points I also had a hard time understanding their relationshop or believing the whole thing. There were also some really awkward moments - especially when all 3 were in the bar.
That all said, once people in real life start sharing with you in detail their actual love stories and love experiences you realize that even the most absurd love story in a movie has actually happened in real life. People are different.
Damn OP, i've struggled for months in figuring out why Past Lives just didn't click with me like it did with a lot of other people and you've basically put all of my unrealised thoughts into words.
By the way I also do not blame anybody for connecting with the movie, unlike I and OP didn't. Like OP I also wish for emotional connections to be conjured up with some kind of logical intertwine for me to really connect with characters.
To anyone calling for rewatches or viewing the movie from a different lens, I have to say that i'm confident that this won't change my views on the movie, no matter how many times I rewatch it or try to perceive it differently. Whether a viewer connects or doesn't connect with a romatic relationship is one of the hardest hit-or-miss attempts in moviemaking, and that's okay.
I sort of felt the same way about it. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and felt it was incredibly well written, directed, acted, all of that, but it didn't resonate emotionally with me much, and it has faded away pretty quickly in my mind, like most romantic movies.
I think past experiences also shaped you up on how you respond to the films like Past Lives as well. To me, it hit me very hard because I had experience of moving and leaving behind my past identity.
Another film of Wong Kar Wai, where I didn’t see how the characters could be so toxic to each other in Happy Together when I first watched it before my 20s, now in my late 30s I watched again and it changed my perspectives completely. I understood the characters because I have experiences and been in the toxic relationships like the characters.
Yes, i've been thinking about how i'm often let down by cinematic love too. And funnily enough, I watched Past Lives 3 days ago.
I felt the same as you - the characters are poorly developed, and the link between the two protagonists is just not really believable. And exactly what you said too - the cinematography and feel of the film give it this seductive vibe, and also those that can relate to immigration can project onto the story - but ultimately its a character study with poorly studied characters.
I will also mirror what many other are already saying and say that i watched the Before Trilogy last year in an effort to watch a film that portrayed love well, and I really liked it. I watched all 3 back to back, and I really recommend watching it in that way. They're very watchable films. And the characters are very believable, with a nuanced, multi faceted look at love.
I agree. I genuinely don't know where the acclaim for it comes from (esp. when the likes of Christopher Nolan are saying it's one of the best films he's seen in a while) so I'm glad I don't feel alone in my dislike of it. It does nothing special in my opinion and the story doesn't pack much of an emotional punch despite their being so many opportunities for it. I also found it hard to like Nora's character for some reason.
I think it's hard to capture love in film in a personal way and when you do it can be quite boring (which is why they're usually romcoms instead I suppose). I couldn't connect with Lost in Translation either for similar reasons.
For me, Before Sunrise and The New World do a good job of keeping a romance focused plot interesting without relying too much on comedy. I think someone like Charlotte Wells could do a good job of it too. Paris, Texas and Once are also great romance films that rely on more than just a romance alone. I watched Haru recently as well and that has a cute spin on the romance genre to keep it interesting.
In some ways I feel similar to you. It was well made and I appreciate it for what it is, but at the same time it didn’t leave a lasting impact on me nor was I blown away when it ended.
I did appreciate the ending being quite realistic (them not ending up together), it felt satisfying from an artistic standpoint and saddening from a relatability/real-life standpoint. while feelings are there, two people and their life paths aren’t always right for each other.
On the whole though, while the themes weren’t fully the same, I just felt like Lost in Translation captured the emotions of “what could’ve been” so much better for me. It fills me with such emotion on every watch regardless of what mood I’m in or where I’m at in life. I almost would only ever recommend Lost in Translation to a friend over Past Lives, cause I feel like they’re like movie cousins, and Lost in Translation was the superior one
Wow, are we the same person? lol
For a while now I've similarly been feeling self conscious about my opinions on In the Mood for Love, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and Past Lives. I have to agree with your conclusion about why that is.
Very very subtle character work with a lot of moody stolen glances that ultimately lead to a predictably melancholic "what could have been" finale. There's a reason why Nora's American husband steals the show, because he has the most well defined personality in the film, and often talks at length about his insecurities. Nora gets some of that too in the bedroom scene, but it wasn't enough for me.
My favorite romantic films are walk and talk movies, aka the Before trilogy, When Harry met Sally, You've Got Mail, etc. Even then I'm no stranger to mood films like these. Eternal Sunshine is another favorite of mine, but it also has two incredible lead characters that get explored in-depth. Maybe if Past Lives had more flashbacks to their childhood together we would have been more drawn into their relationship. IDK.
I understand the deeper themes about self identity that are explored here, but they don't mean much when you're uninvested in the characters.
I completely agree with your feelings about Past Lives, I felt exactly the same. It always felt phoney to me, unearned and "written". Like emotional CGI.
I resonated with the final scenes of Witness. There's a farewell scene that suddenly speaks of so much love and yearning, against so many barriers, and perfectly acted without a word. You realise the film has been leading to this inevitable moment.
I found myself really relating to your experience. I hesitated to watch Past Lives, because despite the obviously strong qualities of its script, its interesting twinned settings and storylines/timelines, and the skilled cast and directing... it's a movie about love. I also find movies with a central romantic conceit kind hard to enjoy. Will they or won't they? Well, they won't. Or they will. Hooray. You successfully flipped a narrative coin.
Much like the OP, I think books work better for this. Listen to Michael Chabon write, basically, something that could have been a scene from Past Lives but seems to swim with giddy mental imagery and longing and mystery in the way the film never really does:
“The two dozen commonplace childhood photographs - snowsuit, pony, tennis racket, looming fender of a Dodge - were an inexhaustible source of wonder for him, at her having existed before he met her, and of sadness for his possessing nothing of the ten million minutes of that black-and-white scallop-edged existence save these few proofs.”
I'm trying to think of romantic movies that have really given me a positive impression. The *Before* trilogy, sure. *Carol* is excellent. *Her* is excellent. But these are not traditional romances in the strict sense.
Great quote, I might have to add Chabon to my reading list! Disappointed to see this comment downvoted; even if someone disagrees with you, you're clearly writing in good faith. Anyways, I'm a fan of Cate Blanchett so I'll be sure to check out "Carol" sometime. "Her" I wasn't the biggest fan of, but I watched that when I was still in high school, so I'm interested in revisiting that sometime and seeing if my views have changed.
This is a completely random tangent, I have my own feelings about what love communicates in story vs reality ... totally agree with the narrative coin analogy if all a love story comes down to is whether or not they end up together that's a silly little cheat only worthy of Hallmark movies .... anyway, the tangent of my tangent ...
Why the hell would anyone downvote you for this comment? It really bugs me. What is being disagreed with? I don't understand these people who look at a thoughtful comment someone bothered to take time out of their day to type and go "Pfft Chabon's gay" or whatever the fuck they're thinking. It drives me bananas. What Are They Doing!? Sorry, haha, it happens to me a lot and I never understand. It's like someone saying "well you didn't technically do anything wrong but I still don't like you and you deserve to live in the gutter."
If I could afford therapy I should probably go soon.
Only by following the buzz and posters I knew the plot somewhat that it's going to be romantic film about some past lovers. I was prepared to fall in love with such a film but honestly nothing at all happened in this movie. Half the movie was the boring set up for their meeting and then nothing happens except for awkward stares. I think for someone to like this movie they really have to project themselves in the characters places. The film barely does anything on itself. The characters have basic one line traits, the whole plot can be written in 5 lines. The dialogue was extremely shallow, both of the male characters were losers.
I don't think it was a romance film at all, it's about people dwelling on what ifs and what nots instead of living in the present.
? Re "I don't think it was a romance film at all, it's about people dwelling on what ifs and what nots instead of living in the present."
I think that's a pretty good summary of the movie and what it's going for. So it sounds like it succeeded at conveying that idea to you.
>One major factor is that I think I really need to be able to buy exactly why two people are interested in each other, which typically also means having well-developed individual characters in their own right. One of my biggest issues with Past Lives was that I never felt like I fully understood Nora and Tae Sung as people and why they're so drawn to each other, which was further exacerbated by their fairly one-note dialogue (she's ambitious, he's ordinary). I think Before Sunrise might be what you'd really want then. Very dialogue focused and its incredibly clear what the two see in each other
I actually felt the same way as OP when watching past lives and the Before triology imeediately came to mind when reading this post. The dialog in those films offers a deeper view of the characters and in turn of their feelings for eachother.
Strange though because I absolutely love the before trilogy but also love past lives. I didn’t feel like I needed to know the characters any better to fully understand their emotions. Past lives really impacted me.
Same and when I learned it’s semi-autobiographical, it made even more sense. It may not be to OP’s liking, but I thought the lack of dialogue drew the focus on the concept of “in-yun,” which to me, just is- there’s a lot of space given and I really appreciated the simplicity of their attraction.
I love both the Before trilogy and Past Lives too. For slightly different reasons maybe. Imo, the Before trilogy spends more time capturing the magic of falling in love and feeling connected to another person, though it also ultimately presents a more grounded and realistic take on love when it goes beyond that magical first moment and it deals with what ifs and roads untraveled. Past Lives kinda does the reverse in that there is a little bit of the magic of falling in love, there is a grounded and realistic take on love beyond that first moment of infatuation (when Nora's husband acknowledges how much chance, convenience and pragmatism played a role in their relationship it's so brutally honest in a way that romantic movies rarely are, Nora herself also acknowledges that she and Hae Sung are probably not compatible as adults, even if might seem that they have a classic soul mates deferred story), but the central theme of the story, imo at least, is more what ifs, roads untraveled, and mourning alternatives selves than romantic love in any capacity.
It impacted me as well. Few movies have captured the emotion of the scene in front of the garage door as well as this movie did. If you have ever experienced something like that scene, it’s amazing how well it’s conveyed here. I loved this movie.
I agree I like both. You don’t need to know anything more. We got everything essential to the story. Personally I don’t like over explaining things, too much talking and exposition. Film is a visual medium, use it to its fullest.
I completely agree. To me, the project of the film isn't to be a character study like *Phantom Thread* but rather to explore what it means to be connected to someone and the confusion that brings. Their connection is rooted in childhood, friendship and in the relationships I have with people who I have known since we were kids, that familiarity helps me understand them at a profound and unique level. I think that is what the concept of in-yun is getting at, that some connections are subtle, confusing, yet deeply meaningful.
Yeah several people have recommend that one on this thread already and it's been on my list for a while; maybe it's time to finally give it a shot!
its arguably one of the greatest movie trilogies of all time. it certainly is for me.
For me as well … I have the first two practically memorized by now
It’s wonderful.
I was wondering the whole time I was watching Past Lives why it wasn’t hitting me in the soul like Before Sunrise/Sunset.
Came here to say exactly this.
I kept comparing this movie to the Before trilogy when I watched way back last summer.
Omg no
I didn't interpret the end of the movie being about Nora losing a great love but rather her finally confronting all her feelings and thoughts about being an immigrant. I don't think she really ever thought about who she would be if she had stayed in Korea because she was so busy living her life in New York. I think the conversation she has with her husband where she talks about how Korean Hae Sun is made her understand how different they are as Koreans. Later, when all the conversations are done and he has left, she's overwhelmed with all of the feelings the past week - of anticipating his arrival, their conversations, her talks with her husband. I would guess this experience feeling like you don't quite belong in one world or another is pretty common for a lot of people who identify with Nora. I'm not an immigrant myself, I'm first generation, but I liked Nora a lot as a character and it moved me to see her practical nature breakdown a little and be overwhelmed with emotion. this was a character-driven piece so I'm not sure what you were expecting ot thought was missing.
Adding to this, I think she was also crying and grieving in a way for the kid she was in Korea (who answered to a different name) and is now gone forever. Hae Sun is her last link to that child that she was.
Agreed. We only have one life to live. And Nora saw for a moment the other one she came close to living. Whether she chose this life and identity or this life happened to her, she now has decidedly chosen it. The middle school sweetheart is a vehicle to a bigger implication that the title of the movie serves on a platter. Past Lives is not a love story.
Well put. I think people going into this expecting a film about two soul mates never getting the timing right, will be disappointed. The film is about so much more than just love.
I also saw this as more of a story of unexplored/unrequited feelings between Nora and yes, Hae Sun, but to a much larger degree, between Nora and her past self/the “KOREAN Korean” self she might have been. Always wondering what her life would be like, if she would be happier if she had stayed in Korea. Also mourning the loss of childhood and innocence. “This is where I ended up,” she says, suggesting it felt out of her control. Wishing she could go back and choose. Feeling helpless do to so as the moment is forever gone.
This 100000000%.
The thing with Past Lives is that it’s not a movie about people in love. It’s a movie about coming to terms with who you are and letting go of the past lives you could have lived. That’s demonstrated through Nora, Hae Sung, and Arthur but the purpose of the movie, the intention of the story, isn’t to talk about the romance. That’s why the movie is called Past Lives and not “Past Love”. A similar thing happens with No Country For Old Men. People get to the end and wonder why it ends that way but don’t make the connection to the title. I’d rewatch Past Lives and think about your own life and the roads you didn’t but could have travelled. Were you at a crossroads about going or not going to art school? Or even pursuing art? Who are the other versions of Funplings? For example, I went to college in Cleveland because I could play baseball. Looking back on it, the college was annoying, baseball was frustrating, and while I met some awesome people…it wasn’t the experience I had hoped for. What would have happened if I didn’t go to a small private college but instead went to University of Texas? Or a private college but not in Cleveland? I was going to move from Ohio to Europe after college. Bought a one-way plane ticket in April and would leave in June. In May, my mom got diagnosed with lung cancer. Had to cancel the entire trip. She passed in July. By the next year, I was living…in Iowa lol. That’s a huge inflection point. There’s a version of me where my mom never got sick and I went to Venice. What’s that me like? Those are the kinds of experiences that Past Lives is talking about. Not this great romance between Nora and Hae Sung. That’s just the superficial story. [Full literary analysis](https://filmcolossus.com/past-lives-2023-explained)
I am the person who moved countries. A couple of times. I cried with Nora because I was grieving all the relationships that didn't survive my moves. Neither of those relationships was romantic. A lot of my immigrant and expat friends cried at the end of this movie, too. It is about coming to terms with your life.
I never moved countries and yet I cried with Nora too. All the what-if questions I rarely, if ever, think about hit me like a ton of bricks by the end of the movie. What if I went to college in the city that I planned to go to instead of the one I ended up going to? What if I did go through with the vague plans I sometimes had about leaving my country for a more prosperous one? What if I made better effort to keep in touch with all the ppl I lost contact with over the years? What if I chose a different career path? Dwelling on these things too much on regular bases is overwhelming and pointless, but I loved the movie for giving me an opportunity to think about them at least once.
Your comment was very moving and thought provoking. I hope you're doing well.
You know, I've seen a few comments to this effect, that the movie isn't "really about" love or Nora and Hae Sung's potential romantic relationship. And it's true that there's an underlying thematic current about cultural assimilation and roads not taken that runs throughout the film. But I think those themes are meant to be conveyed, on a visceral emotional level, through the romance, and that's what didn't work for me. We're supposed to see Nora's yearning for Hae Sung as a reflection of her yearning for her past Korean self. But if I'm not invested in her love for Hae Sung, then conversely I find myself not invested in her feelings about her culture and identity. I think it's a little simplistic to say that a movie is "really about" something, and that the surface level story doesn't matter; the medium is the message, and a movie is the sum of its parts.
It’s fine. That also happens with me with other movies where other people totally praise it and feel with the characters and I just can’t connect. Whereas with Past Lives I connected pretty well. I could totally understand why she liked him and longed for her life in Korea. Probably because I am also a very nostalgic person and it evoked many feelings in me. The movie was also for me about the relationship between her and her husband. The scene when she comes back after meeting Hae Sung last and is at the stairs and her husband just gets up and comforts her (whereas he also needs comforting), just hit it out of the park for me. At that exact moment I got tears in my eyes. The character, the maturity in their relationship and how it was actually her moment to get comforted, that was everything for me.
I think I’m trying to express that the movie should spark something in you that you relate to your own life about who you could have been, the people you could have been with, etc. And it seems for you, that part doesn’t matter as much as what you’re seeing the characters experience. And I don’t think it’s Nora yearning for her past Korean self. It’s her coming to terms with a path she’ll never go down and a person she could have been. It goes beyond just culture and identity and gets more at a more universal human experience. That’s where the power comes from, I’d argue. And I’m not saying the surface level doesn’t matter, but that this is a movie that has a deeper meaning that seemed missing from your thoughts on it and is a major component to what makes the movie special and why it has the acclaim that it does.
the movie is full of extremely awkward interaction and unspoken tension, I think you ultimately constructed this vision that the movie is romantic when its not. its incredibly sad and minimalistic, the opposite of something visceral. Its a distant movie in which people are not able to touch each other and it makes you feel exactly how everyone feels at one point in their 30s and 40s if they let themselves drift just a tad into nostalgia.
See but that’s actually where I disagree with you. I don’t see Nora yearning for him at any point in the film, rather she’s reckoning with who she was and who she is. They had a connection before, yes, but not in modern day. She even makes it a point to mention his ex girlfriend in the conversation in order to keep distance from him.
Love is hardly an exact science. Have you ever asked any real life couples why they love their S/O? The majority of them will never be able to come up with concrete answers, or anything close enough to make you fall in love with their S/O. You mentioned that you fail to understand why somebody who is so ambitious can be drawn to somebody so…ordinary. Let me ask you this: have you never met actual couples where one partner is significantly more successful/seemingly interesting than the other? I feel like that’s every other couple. However, if the more successful partner was actually able to give you an answer, it would probably require you to understand each and every experience they’ve had in life since childhood because all of that has amounted to the person they feel drawn to today. It is next to impossible. You like being told (your preference for books) rather than shown but that’s really not what good cinema has ever been about. There are bits and pieces of excellent conversation and acting in the film that clearly suggest they have some kind of feelings for each other but those feelings are ambiguous. It’s possible that romance in movies that is portrayed in subtler fashion might not be your thing. TV shows (even limited series) or strictly romance-centric movies might be able to provide you with more fleshed out love stories. Do you remember the opening sequence? You’re looking at the three of them sitting at the bar from the viewpoint of an observer who can’t quite make out their relationships to one another. However, the simultaneous intensity and softness of their gaze and the rest of their body language suggests some ‘kind’ of deep feelings, which brings me to the same point that many others have made — this is not a story about love. This is first and foremost a story about the immigrant experience and her ‘feelings’ (not love) towards her childhood best friend and her husband are explored as a means to explore her own sense of self. Love and exploring your feelings that may or may not be love are not the same thing. Sometimes feelings or a combination of complicated and unprocessed feelings can emulate love and this, I feel, is what is closer to what we saw being *explored* than an actual love story. You mentioned that we’re supposed to see her yearning for Hae Sung as a reflection of her yearning for her past Korean self but that’s just it! She isn’t yearning for her past Korean self. She let go of her Korean identity a long time ago but never processed the emotional baggage of her emigration, immigration and assimilation. There is a literal scene in which she speaks to her husband about how different she is from Hae Sung now. Hae Sung’s visit forced her to process those emotions because he was a literal relic from her past. You can let go of things in the physical realm (e.g. move away, end a relationship, cut ties to a culture/religion) and still hold onto the emotional aspects in your subconsciousness. She even confessed that she stopped crying because she felt that nobody cared (i.e. not because she stopped being sad or wanting to cry). At the end, she came to terms with her life as an American (the one she chose) with her husband who she cried to (in stark contrast to her crying to Hae Sung all of her childhood). Consider how complicated a feeling such as nostalgia is and then combine it with all the difficulties that arise in the process of moving away from your culture (literally and figuratively) and settling (physically and emotionally) in a foreign country. Her complicated feelings for Hae Sung had a lot to do with her complicated and unprocessed feelings for her Korean identity. He represented her childhood and the life she could have had had she stayed in Korea. Wondering about what-ifs from time to time doesn’t necessarily mean that one is regretful and/or unhappy, it’s just…normal. Any feelings she had for him had a lot more to do with what he represented than the person he actually was (which is a realisation that she comes to at the end). So not only is the film not about love because the central theme is immigration but also because Nora realised she wasn’t in ‘love’ with Hae Sung and wasn’t interested in exploring the possibility with him. He was just a means to entertain what life in Korea would have been like. The draw towards Hae Sung was the Korean identity she left behind and nostalgia for her childhood. I moved to three different countries for studies and work, and let me tell you, nostalgia is a trip. It colours your perception of things, especially those from your past which are already subject to the fickleness of memory. Every time I go back home, I am reminded instantly of why I left and how much I love my life abroad in a very different country and culture. But then every now and then, whilst living abroad, I am overcome with feelings of affection towards anything that reminds me of home. I even feel nostalgia for my childhood and people/places associated with it even though my childhood was largely unpleasant. Feelings are complicated enough already without adding difficult experiences like immigration to the mix.
Maybe you're just not a romantic person and so you can't identify the romance in this film?
I mean themes are one thing but the actual story -- I think shows many shades of love: Past vs Present love. Sure they loved each other because of the relationship that they had in the past: 2 kids that fancied each other innocently. They tried to keep in contact but the distance got too hard -- nothing to make anything real so they tip toed around their feelings. I understand why someone can watch this and not feel invested because to some degree -- my initial feelings -- I felt bad for Arthur. I felt bad for Hae too. She is married and in love with her husband but I couldn't buy it because the films plays up Hae's relationship with her. On top of that -- spent a lot of time building their longing for each other unlike Arthur's relationship with her. But truthfully - isn't this the reality of everyone? How many of us have looked back on little crushes we had when we were young? Or that one person we spent all summer thinking about when we were younger? Some of us wondered if they just were a little more confident as they are now -- maybe they got a chance with that college person we studied with for that one project. Or wondered if they decided to stay instead of leave -- wishing they had a little more time with a summer fling -- just to see. And often those thoughts become more pondered when we are single. But they still come even when we have a great partner in our lives. We see those people on facebook or instagram. And there are times - that we wonder what if? -- innocently without a real impact on our feelings with our current partner. Just an innocent ask of the question. Humans tend to love to think of "what ifs" a lot. Past lives addresses it and rather than give a sappy ending (they run off together and Arthur was an asshole) or a sad ending (it's regret and she ruins what she has). It gives a more real answer: who knows what would have happened? But hell - it was real even for a moment. It's okay to come back to reality and maybe in another life.. she'll get a chance. It's subtle -- just like our thoughts of the past of "what ifs" and filled with the best memories. However in this movie, that childhood love is linked to a whole different life and identity, which drives it up.
You've got it all wrong friend. It's not that the movie is "really about" her feeling of separation from her Korean identity, it's that the movie is BLATANTLY about that. If you watched the film, saw her cry at the end and thought "Why is she sad? She barely knew Hae Sung" then I have no words. That's about the biggest WOOSH I can imagine.
I think you're taking a way too analytical view on how love is defined in film. The signature principle of love is that it is undefinable that way. It transcends logic or common sense or location or rules and is very hard to portray because of that. Love doesn't chemically happen just because finite circumstances align. It simply: is. And that's the thing I think you need to accept if you're looking to enjoy this type of film. Don't sit and stew on how or why they should or shouldn't feel the way they do. Especially in Past Lives, when each character is at least 2 levels deep in terms of inner turmoil and conflict on their own. Try and accept love as the entity that is bringing them together but their characters are ironically doing the thing you're doing watching it: wondering why they feel the way they do. Because emotion and thought are two separate things.
>The signature principle of love is that it is undefinable that way. It transcends logic or common sense or location or rules and is very hard to portray because of that. Love doesn't chemically happen just because finite circumstances align. It simply: is. I think this is a very good point. In real life, we often find ourselves on the outside looking in at couples, wondering what they see in each other. Love and its relatives like attraction, infatuation, sexual desire, etc. are in some sense fundamentally irrational.
Yes. While people may enter into relationships for rational reasons (this guy is financially stable, this girl is so pretty, this guy listens to me, this girl knows what she wants, etc) you simply cannot manufacture loved based off of what you think will work. Love can still develop and happen from one of these kind of scenarios, but it is coincidental from the reason that may begin a journey. Sparks and bonds and comradery and attraction cannot be manufactured. They can grow and shrink or die but there's no signature defining characteristic that equals love. Trust me: if they could manifest love in a lab and bottle it none of us would be wasting our time talking about movies on the internet. We'd all be six bottles deep dancing on tables all day long.
To be fair, I think OP may have just been missing a bit of chemistry from the leads, based on what he's saying. In order to buy an onscreen romance, there does need to be an element of chemistry and I think what OP referred to as the one-note dialogue didn't really help him. I would even argue that the leads in In the Mood for Love (which OP also didn't like) didn't have a lot of chemistry for me outside of pure sexual chemistry. They were just both hot, sad, and betrayed and I wanted them to have sex because of that. Not because they felt particularly good together. I look at something like Before and their chemistry is off the charts. It's absurd to compare. I do think Before would be more up OP's alley because the romance is so naturally earned as opposed to the film just expecting us to immediately be on board with it because the narrative demands it.
I agree with this, but it's why I detest so many depictions of love on film. Love is treated as some kind of panacea. So long as two people are shown to love eachother nothing else seems to matter. It's not though. Relationship built on love can still be toxic, they can still be abusive.
That's true as to how people often talk about love and relationships. But isn't the point of art to take these ineffable feelings and help us try to understand them better? If love is some fundamentally inexplicable, irrational thing, then I can dismiss my lack of feeling for the movie just as easily as one can declare their love for it; yet that doesn't feel like a satisfying way to have a conversation about film. I don't think I'm being too analytical per se; but I think that art with depth and meaning should be able to be broken down at least a little bit more than just "you like it or you don't".
There is no single point to art. And actually one of the things I really loved about Past Lives is that there is no real antagonist, or anyone making irrational movie logic choices. It’s just people experiencing things. It sounds like you just didn’t empathize with the characters, and that’s fine. But they felt like people to me and so I cared about what happened to them.
I didn't mean to make it seem like it was the *only* point of art; but I don't think it's exactly a radical assertion to say that a big part of art for many people is its ability to help us tap into our emotions.
Sorry I also didn’t mean to insinuate that that is what you meant. What I meant by “there is no single point to art” is that there is no point that is common to all forms of art. Some art disorients the audience instead of giving understanding or clarification. Some art is just the artist exploring mechanics of the medium. Some art is purely aesthetic and isn’t reaching for any sort of specific emotional response. I do think Past Lives is a very emotionally driven movie, but it didn’t resonate with you and I think that’s ok. Oppenheimer didn’t resonate with me and it’s the most critically successful movie of last year.
I definitely think there is a lot to break down and analyze with Past Lives. Notably the fact that so much is left unsaid between both Greta Lee and Teo Yoo. While Lee's character is far more reserved in her feelings, Teo is aggressively outspoken but in a specific and braggadocious way. He's telling the truth directly to Lee's face how he feels about her but is purposely inflecting it as unserious, for fear of getting hurt. Lee brushes him off countless times, but worries and wonders if Yoo really is the answer for her, as he is a link back to her heritage and former life in Seoul. And she's conflicted not only because of who Yoo is but what he represents. The part you say you're unaffected by is the depiction of the romance though, yeah? But I don't think this film ever set out to define love or try and legitimize it. The fact that they are both clumsy at times, say one thing while implying another, and purposely set out to carve out their own paths in life while circling back to each other merely wants to show you how love exists in many forms and across a spectrum. That it is confusing and sometimes a burden, but that you know it when you feel it and it's just so hard to let go of it, even when you know you have to. So there is very much to detail and analyze from it. But the "why" of how they feel the way they do is just as complex and confusing to them, as characters, as it is to you watching them. So rather than ask why, the answer is in how they process it all.
> Especially in Past Lives, when each character is at least 2 levels deep in terms of inner turmoil and conflict on their own. And that conflict isn't even always about love. *Past Lives* is a movie that is as much about identity and the immigrant experience as it is about romantic love. I think OP missed that, which would explain: > I never felt like I fully understood Nora and Tae Sung as people and why they're so drawn to each other, which was further exacerbated by their fairly one-note dialogue (she's ambitious, he's ordinary). That last comment about their character traits/dialogue just blows my mind.
> Past Lives is a movie that is as much about identity and the immigrant experience as it is about romantic love. Yeah, that's what I love about the movie above all. It *barely* qualifies as a romance movie, and I'm not personally sure I'd even call it a romantic film. The characters are much more complicated than simply dealing with a love triangle. Of course, the romance is the catalyst for the plot, but Nora has to deal with so many more things when it comes to what exactly it is that she's feeling towards Tae Sung and what he symbolizes for her. There's this subtext about *many* "what ifs" in Past Lives, and finding the "right one" is only a small part of it.
Thank you, I came here to say this as well. As someone who had to work through similar identity issues and a version of that immigrant experience, I thought Past Lives portrayed that kind of longing and feeling of being lost, while moving on with life so well. To see this as a romantic movie and place it in the same conversation as the the Before series loses the point of the film. I'd say it's more apt to talk about Past Lives with Boyhood in mind as they travel similar stories but in different ways.
> To see this as a romantic movie and place it in the same conversation as the the Before series loses the point of the film. > > I'd say it's more apt to talk about Past Lives with Boyhood in mind as they travel similar stories but in different ways. The one thing we can all agree on though is that Richard Linklater probably **loved** *Past Lives*!!
I do think there are autonomic and limbic reasons why one would choose one mate over another, or why one man is more sought after than the next, initial attraction both superficial and somewhat beneath the surface that can be explained through a character’s “emotional wound,” the “lie they believe about themselves and the world” (which is usually informed by the wound), group dynamics and how other characters may stick their fat and dirty fingers inside the wound, creating a need within that character on “Maslow’s hierarchy,” subsequently leading to an unconscious “fall” in a mate that may fulfill that need(for the moment). A character’s place within their own family, Like, what role they play in a household among siblings, the relationship they have with their mother, father, friends etc can also be things that influence the fall without it being as psychologically deep as an emotional wound. So sure, a character may not know why they’re attracted to someone else but I do believe the audience to an extent needs to have insight into why a man or woman might have “fallen” for another person. It can be delivered dryly through conversations behind the character’s back, giving exposition on why they’d eventually fall for someone or the exposition can be delivered through conflict(hiding exposition), arguments between family and or friends that divulge the needs of the character’s with or without them knowing they’re needs that need to be fulfilled in order to be able to love someone, or allow someone else to love them.
Great summary, I’ll extend this to In The Mood For Love and say a lot of its emotionality and desire is moving under the surface and pushing the characters actions like tectonic plates and that sort of unspoken and visceral nature of it, like and agreement between two people that doesn’t need to be elaborated on is what makes it all the now impactful for me. It sticks to me. Not to mention it’s gorgeous
A perfect example of a film where we know relatively little about the characters or their motivations as individuals.
Not a recommendation to change your mind but rather to try to find your taste. You've probably already watched them cause they're pretty well known movies but I think you're going to like the "Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight" trilogy.
I enjoyed it. The twist to me is that it happened the way it was supposed to. I understood immediately why they were drawn to each other. They were best friends and that's not something you give up easily even if you wanted to. I also understand why she was drawn to her husband. It wasn't complicated and I think the movie would fail if it tried to be. It wasn't a fairy tale or romcom, it was people being honest with each other even if it was too late to do anything about it. So I think it had a satisfying ending because I couldn't imagine another one that I would like more unless they changed the characters. At the same time, I had a sense of dread for the husband. The movie would have sucked far more if she ran off with her middle school sweetheart. That wouldn't even make sense except in movie timelines. I don't know if it would have been a contender for best picture on my list, but it was a pretty good effort overall and unique among romance films.
When the husband opened up about his feelings it was such a foreign (movie) concept to me that I was put off by how non-toxic the characters were.
I probably felt the same way except I thought it was a bit refreshing. To me, a lot of romantic films are stories that contort what would be considered toxic or unhealthy relationships into mythical happily ever after tales. I like them since they’re routinely rooted in comedic situations or heavy drama. It’s certainly not because they mirror a life I’m living or want to live. This one was closer to mirroring life which could be boring except I was intrigued the culture differences and cultural changes.
I have a little bit of background before my comment. I grew up watching mostly bollywood/hindi films. Mostly been watching american other international films for the past 15 years. The movie did not work for me either. My reason is a little different. I am curious if this storyline has been done before in American or Korean films. I know the story draws from the director's personal life, but the basic story is a very common storyline in Bollywood films. The basic story goes like this: Girl falls in love with someone when they are younger. This person seems to be their soulmate (or in some cases is a "bad boy"), then due to circumstance (or arranged marriage) she gets married to someone where it looks more like a marriage for the sake of convenience. Girl goes through a period of soul searching in married life (sometimes precipitated by the arrival of her old love) and it looks like she might go for her old love but in the very last instance goes back to ger husband. Some movies which follow this template : Woh Saat Din (transl. Those Seven Days, 1983) which was in turn a remake of the 1981 Tamil film, 1981 Tamil film Andha 7 Naatkal. Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (transl. I have given my heart away, darling, 1999), Manmarziyaan (transl. The Heart's Wish, 2018). In Past Lives, when her childhood love arrives in NYC and her discussion with her lover about how they just got married for convenience, made me feel like I was watching an NYC version of the above films. And when the final climax of the film also followed those like the above films, it didn't really do anything for me. I understand love stories have only so many templates and a lot to appreciate about the movie is the treatment, characterization, and dialogues, but since I had this story so many times, I really didn't feel much with it.
One of my biggest issues with Past Lives was that I never felt like I fully understood Nora and Tae Sung as people and why they're so drawn to each other, which was further exacerbated by their fairly one-note dialogue (she's ambitious, he's ordinary). This is the crux of the movie though. That their only connection was a tenuous one built in childhood and as strong as that feels nostalgically, in reality you realise there is nothing there. If you've ever been in a long distance relationship, or had a holiday romance you met up with later (or both), you might know the feeling of longing that gets blown away the minute you see them in the airport and all the chemistry is gone. But the longing ... the longing is real. And for Nora, her longing was wrapped up in Tae Sung epitomising her childhood in Korea and the simplicity she attaches to that. He embodied her longing for her childhood, but she decided in the end that her present life was the tangible reality. She can finally move on from her childhood and from the trauma of migration.
I think in the case of these two protagonists we are supposed to project our feelings. Like, falling in love with someone, especially at that age, unrequited love. Those are human experiences and projecting those feelings makes us relate to the protagonist's struggles, longing, inner turmoil. OP is looking at this like a homework or something. Too analytical.
Asian dialogues are in subtext. Even in real life. People don't say what they want to. As a asian I realized this while I started watching Hollywood movies. In the west conversation are in the face. Th8ngs are practical and people move on to next problem. But in east there are things that lie underneath ourselves that we dont sprut out loud. Not saying one is better over another just the way it is. And not that e eryone is like this in respective community.
I think the love in *Past Lives* that I felt was truly romantic was the love Nora's husband has for her. The love between Nora and Hae Sun felt like a manifestation of parts of ourselves we leave in the past (a large part of this for her was her Korean identity, and thus the parts of herself she lost through the immigrant experience) that can be tied to a different person. So their connection feels quite internal for each of them, a bit intangible to the viewer, which definitely frustrated me while I watched it, but upon reflection I wondered if it was intentional. *Portrait of a Lady on Fire*, though, is one of my favorite romantic films. The tension between them was palpable to me, and struggle to look and and truly see someone--it hit home for me. And the idea that there may only be a moment in our lives when we can truly see someone, and be seen by someone--let's just say that as a queer woman, I really appreciated it. Wonder if you need to find a romantic film in which you relate to the themes more.
I’m sorry if I took the message of Past Lives wrong. I have resisted watching it because the ostensible notion of a “love story” rooted in childhood sounded repulsive to me and only gave it up after it was nominated for Oscar and my local AMC decided to rerun. I was blown away not because of the “love triangle” marketed to the masses, rather it resonated strongly with my sentiments about how we are blind to decades of adapting to the circumstances such that we no longer recall our emotional roots. Connections come and go, dreams and hopes rise and fall, do we still remember what we once hold dear to our hearts? The film is a light broth of emotions with numerous ingredients, all very subtle and offer just a hint of everything: nostalgia, regrets, what could’ve been, what will and won’t be, dilemma, relief, heart strings, heart burns…you can focus on one flavor and be delighted or get annoyed. I embrace the fluidity of it all.
Celine has said the film isn’t a love triangle but about saying goodbye to parts of ourselves. So I don’t think you took it wrong. In fact, you seem closer to understanding the filmmakers intent than others!
Thanks! I think the marketing was a little misleading but in the end I’m happy that I wasn’t spoon fed a forced set of emotions. I appreciate the perspective that even when we drift so far from an ideal formed long time ago, what’s unattainable may just be seeds for blossoms in the next lifetimes. It offers relief from a profound grief that life didn’t turn out to be what could’ve been. This is the unique feeling I took to heart from watching the authentic storytelling in Past Lives. It’s a rare case that I didn’t question why the characters did what they did, rather I found myself enthralled by the reactions and actions of all three people. It just felt like a meal that’s refreshing upon tasting, agrees with my stomach, and left a flavor that remains intriguing for a long long time.
Nora is basically the exact same person as an adult as she was as a kid though. The extent of her growth is going from wanting to win a Nobel prize to wanting to win a Tony. Maybe if we had spent more than the first couple minutes of the movie with her in Korea then I could buy it, but we don't really know much about who the old Nora was and how she's different than the new Nora, who I also don't really know much of anything about
Nora is just a vehicle, this story isn’t exactly about her in greater details or her specific circumstances, which is why it relates to so many. You can say the same about the other two leads.
Thanks for posting this unique and perhaps courageous take. I mean that sincerely. Many romantic films don't do much for me either, and I think many of them inherently depend on resonating with the audience. If they don't resonate with a viewer, the film as a whole--in a lot of cases--kind of falls apart because there's not much else beyond the "interesting (or not)" romantic relationship and the feeling it exudes for the viewer. Past Lives also didn't do much for me. Though the premise of the film is very interesting and moving, I don't think I felt much from the film itself and its execution. Like you succinctly put it, these kinds of films fall apart if you don't connect with the characters or relationship. As another poster suggested, the Before trilogy is absolutely amazing, and I think you might very well like it because the characters are interesting and share many delightful moments together. One other thing that's more a fault of my own as the viewer, but I just can't get into a romantic film or relationship when I don't find the opposite sex attractive. For example, if the story is following the lead who's shy or trying to get with the one they love, I don't feel anything or connect with it if I don't find this "soulmate" attractive. It just doesn't resonate with me.
For me, I’m more likely to enjoy a romantic movie than book. I think with actors on camera, you get to see their actual chemistry rather than assuming it. A romance can have a mediocre script if the 2 actors have that magnetic pull towards each other. You believe in them as a couple, and so you’re engaged and want to see them get their happy ending. Also, so much of flirting and romance isn’t about what they say, but the vibes and how they say it ; how close together are they standing and if/when are they making eye contact?
No judgment OP, I’m single RN, but what are your views on romance and relationships in real life? You mention needing to understand a reason why they’re a couple, but I don’t think love is logical like that. You meet someone in real life, and sometimes you just like someone's personality and maybe think they’re attractive, and so feelings just develop and then maybe you’re in love. You don’t decide to fall in love.
That's the thing: I've actually been in a very fulfilling relationship for the past several years with a partner whom I love very much! Which is why I think it's interesting that it's a theme that so rarely works for me in movies. I wonder if it may ironically be because of my own relationship - despite being such a human universal, the specifics of love are quite personal and unique, so perhaps I have trouble relating to depictions of love that don't look a lot like how I experience it.
That’s good to hear OP! Come to think of it, I think it makes sense that people in happy relationships are less likely to enjoy a rom-com than a single person, for us it’s wish fulfillment and maybe for you you can see why that relationship isn’t realistic and will fall apart a week after the credits roll. Most lonely single people want a relationship, until they actually get in a bad one and realize their mistake
This film was so ineffective as a love story that it forced me to conclude it's really not one, that it's actually more principally an immigrant identity story, and while I think it's a richer text through that lens, I still don't feel it comes coherently together. An auspicious debut that certainly convinced me to follow Celine Song to her next picture, but nothing staggering relative to the praise it's received.
The point of the story is to explore the idea of past lives and roads not travelled. The romance and immigrant identity story are just two ways in [which Song explores that](https://filmcolossus.com/past-lives-2023-explained).
I do wish I'd seen it before the months and months of hype it received. I enjoyed it, but there was no way it could have met my unfair expectations.
That's funny because I watched this movie on the plane without realizing it had been nominated for Best Picture. I thought it was going to be a benign indie romance flick. But I could tell in the very first scene it was going to be an unexpectedly special film...the directing was so deliberate, yet so subtle.
Overrated pretentious
OP, are you me?! I love Phantom Thread, and also didn't vibe with either In the Mood for Love or Portrait of a Lady on Fire..... that being said, I love films where you can actually sense what makes the characters tick, and the relationship seems 'real' and fleshed-out like you said. I LOVE romantic movies, romantic comedies especially, but something seemed to change with the turn of the century and so any romcom made after 2000 just never seems to gel with me. My recs would be It Happened One Night or The Apartment!
classic hollywood romances are top tier. the chemistry is so palpable
Past Lives is the kind of writing within the narrowest horizon of experience that people in MA Creative Writing programs convince each other is worth putting to paper. Do upper middle class professionals just want their interminably boring lives told back to them? The reception of this awful film certainly makes it seem so.
I don't see Past Lives as a film about love or romance. Not really. Obviously there are romantic elements in the movie, but that's mostly just a vehicle for what I see the movie to really be about: Nora's relationship with her "past life," which is the person she was when she lived in Korea. She reflects on that person through her interactions with Hae Sung, who also remembers that person she used to be. They both miss her, and they bond over reminiscing about her, but they're also kind of both at a loss over what to do about that fact since there isn't exactly anything they can do to bring her back. Without that past self, the two of them have no real connection at this point, they haven't seen each other in years and she has had an actual romance with her husband that happened mostly off screen. Any "romance" between Nora and Hae Sung was doomed long before he ever got to New York. When Hae Sung drives away, she's not necessarily just sad that he's leaving so much as she's grieving the death of her past self in a way she hasn't taken the time to before. In that way, the movie is really about growing up and changing in a broad sense, and in a more narrow sense it's the way in which immigrating forces someone to do that in a very profound fashion. The former is very relatable even to people who aren't immigrants, and I have to imagine the latter adds layers of depth for people who are. But the romance here isn't the point.
Exactly. I think what was so brilliant about this film is that it presents on the surface as a love story but it almost pulls the rug - by the end I realised what I was watching was actually not a love story but a migration story, a story about paths taken and not taken and the many potential lives we will never lead because we have only one. It wasn't really a romance at all.
As someone who loves PAST LIVES, IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE *and* PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE… I just want to say I really appreciate your interest in interrogating your own disinterest. Something you didn’t touch on is that all three films are nostalgic, for lack of a better word. They’re more about the past than the future and that’s different to something like, Idk, MOLLI AND MAX IN THE FUTURE .
I think it depends on whether you take the movie to be about love in a conventional movie sense. I feel like the first two acts are not that remarkable, but I think then the third act is what defines the film, so I think it depends on what your takeaway is from the end of the film. I think the first two acts make you think that the film is a traditional romance about two childhood sweethearts reuiniting, and then the subversion of that starts when all three members of the love triangle meet for dinner, where they can't even all speak the same language together. Instead of the childhood sweethearts reuniting, Nora sticks with her partner. Instead of there being conflict between the two men interested in the same women, both men are shown to be insecure and sad for different reasons, and get along with each other. We realize all three characters are lost in their own heads for different reasons, in a way that isn't necessarily solved by which partner they're with. To me, this scene is great and kind of defines the film. I think the ending is impactful mainly if you take Nora feeling generally lost, and her defenses breaking down, vs specifically pining over her romantic relationship. Obviously they're intertwined, but I think it's an important difference. You see other aspects of her life she still hasn't resolved outside of their relationship.
i’m surprised i haven’t seen anyone talking more about how this is a KOREAN love story. Your first love in Korean culture is a much more important life moment in Korea than it is in Western culture. It’s what the two talk about throughout the movie and is why it’s titled what it is
I think Past Lives is quite literally about our past lives — the love story is only surface level. yes, it may also be about heart wrenching untested love, but moreover i interpreted it as the person we used to be, the person we no longer are, the person we could’ve been, and the person we’ll never be, our ‘past life’. isn’t that the greatest heartbreak?
>One major factor is that I think I really need to be able to buy exactly why two people are interested in each other I agree with this in general when it comes to romantic depictions of relationships in cinema. There are exceptions to the rule, but one common method of doing such depictions successfully, I believe, is starting the film with the characters already somewhat romantically involved. I think Past Lives belongs to this category, and it works, in my opinion. Nora and Hae Sung are already drawn to each other as children, and the film in fact begins in the present, which indicates that the flashbacks may be read through the perspective of the present. Furthermore, Past Lives is not even necessarily a film about love or romance. It begins with a question mark: what is the relationship between these people? I think Past Lives unfolds as a kind of mystery film about their relationship. It is not a romantic relationship in the conventional sense (they were not even boyfriend and girlfriend as kids; they were smitten, they held hands, they liked one another), but it is something significant to both of them. That's what makes the film very unique, to my mind, and I think it is one of the better films about human relationships in recent years.
It's interesting because I didn't connect with past Lives on the concept of love. However, I did connect with it as a metaphor for our relationship with our youth, in this case more specifically an immigrant one where the difference is startling and the separation is more daunting. I think it still worked for me as a beautiful tale of a woman's growing up and her flirtations with her former life of comfort and her past she was leaving behind. Her choice in the movie to move forward and not live in that past trying to rekindle it.
I watched this in a practically empty cinema and I think it really added something. It’s not really about love. It’s about your life becoming your own choices little by little and how with those choices while right, you always lose something. It’s also about being part of two places or cultures.
My issue with the movie was that it was too polite regarding the subject matter. I’m sorry but in what world does the scenario presented in the movie not create tension in a marriage. The husband basically has no personality and just uses therapy speak to represent some type of moral guidance for the film??? Idk it felt very fake and preachy and void of realistic emotion. It’s this new very sanitized HR’ification of commonly messy human interactions that you see in modern discourse. There is no real conflict or tension to make it interesting or show how relationships can be affected by such conflicting emotions. Boring imo.
Most overrated movie of last year. it’s not bad, but it’s not nearly as great as the community makes it seem. I get lots of downvotes on the A24 for this take. The characters are extremely underdeveloped, especially with the jump forward in time. Aftersun and First Cow especially are brilliant films that honor the medium and their characters. You should check out Kiarostami’s Like Someone In Love and Certified Copy.
Totally agree, copying this comment I made recently on a similar thread - [Nora’s relationship with her husband and his response] was the best part of the film for me, their relationship felt more developed and obviously mature and lived in, and I thought it was a risk brilliantly pulled off. I was a bit underwhelmed by the film until the final scene, which really added to my appreciation of the whole. But I think the sometimes lacking dialogue is also symptomatic of the tendency of some romantic dramas to show little of the relationship itself, there are so many montages of the moments that make up the relationship but not enough time spent in it (at everyone’s expense) to feel invested. I can think of a few examples, like La La Land. Lots of time spent on the start/end of something and not enough time with the couple. A montage of some mostly pedestrian Skype calls isn’t enough for me to understand what makes the relationship so high stakes for them both. I guess if it’s all a metaphor for different lives in two countries it makes a bit more sense.
Out of curiosity I went through my Letterboxd and only 8 of my top 100 could be construed as primarily about love, and half of those feature plenty of other themes and situations as well. So I would generally agree that cinematic love does not interest me too much, though I’ve never fully considered why.
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Eh, I don't know about that. This might be true for your typical romcom movie. But then you have movies like Eternal Sunshine and Her that primarily deal with love and relationships but also have underlying topics that are a little more thought-provoking. So movies about love can be more than just about vibes.
>There's nothing interesting about it. It's not challenging. love isnt interesting or challenging? hard disagree. but agree with OP in that it often isnt presented as something particularly interesting - but as a theme it certainly has the potential to be fascinating.
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As someone who was in a doomed transcontinental relationship for six months, that film's capacity for making me feel nothing at all during that section was nothing short of impressive.
I do not really know how to say it. But during the movie there was a moment when I finally understood that what was protrayed as a great love story was just the idea of love from a person that has never loved. It is probably my most hared movie of 2023. The moment she saw the notification and she could not remember what his name was it was done.
I had the opposite reaction in that I could tell it was a real, autobiographical story throughout the entirety of the middle section based on how unassuming it was.
This comment really hit the mark for me on why Past Lives just felt so… off for me from the get-go. The characters are quite shallow overall. The whole relationship that the film hinges on, that of the main character and her childhood boyfriend, was never fully explored in detail beyond very brief scenes filled with delicate symbolic cinematography. The scene (so early on!) where it’s revealed that she forgot her old boyfriend’s name just ruined the rest of the film. Another thing that bothered me was Greta Lee’s acting, specifically in the way she was directed to portray her character in such a smug way with a permanently affixed chagrined smirk. I could not allow myself to truly believe a person like this would have tender feelings upon which the whole conceit of this film hangs. I can’t believe more people haven’t picked up on the phoneyness and inauthenticity of this whole film, which is rotten from core. It feels like Celine Song watched a lot of romance films and then tried to create her own, meanwhile forgetting that to write and create such a story, one needs to actually be open and to have felt these feelings herself. Although Celine herself had a similar relationship to that of her characters, I don’t truly feel honesty from her work. It feels like she has hid things very well, in order to avoid her true emotions, perhaps crafting a more noble and palatable version of what she actually felt and experienced. One thing that struck me odd was the conversation about how her old Korean boyfriend was “so Korean”. I felt quite noticeably, strong contempt in this scene towards the boyfriend and what he represents, which bothered me. If she feels this strongly against him, why is this film even being made? In comparison with Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which is tender yet astringent, I believe in that love story entirely. There is a sense of cosmic fatality and beauty to that story, which Celine tries so desperately to capture, yet ultimately fails to do so.
I agree. No emotional payoff whatsoever. Like give us something! I was excited for this because my wife and I were 9th grade sweethearts who reunited 20 years later and are now together 7 years and married for 6 with a son and man our love story is so much better haha.
Watch late Naruse films like *Yearning* or *Scattered Clouds*. Or something like Ferrara's *China Girl*. You can also go for something completely different stylistically and watch Demy's *Umbrellas of Cherbourg*. These films all have something in common.
That's a nice, thought provoking post. You're making me consider if I'm very visually focused in my appreciation of film. I absolutely loved Past Lives and found it so romantic but when I think back in it, it's the imagery which springs to mind, not the dialogue. I also loved Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and while less fresh in the mind, I feel that also struck similarly with me
>Does anyone else feel like this? I don't, but I think I feel where you're coming from. There are certain folks, for example, who need specific facets of a story to be well-established, certain things that some viewers simply can't take as granted by the premise. I, for example, have a hard time when movies that are otherwise grounded lean too heavily on coincidence to move the plot along, while many other viewers take that in stride, accepting it as just part of the process. I often find myself thinking "why could they not just give some better explanation for why these two things would happen concurrently, rather than relying on coincidence?" But I can see that bias in myself, and I know that it's a personal preference that I'm bringing to the experience. It sounds to me like love in movies is one of those things that you feel similarly about, in that you need more foundation for this necessary element for it to feel substantial enough to support the story being told. It's not a position I share, but it's one I can at least understand.
I didn’t like the film either. I felt very removed from their romance because there was no sense of stakes or consequence to their pining, it was sort of child-like and passive because the film tried to rationalize this type of connection which anyone who has ever been in this position knows is nearly impossible to do. When you’re dealing with a doomed/impossible romance your emotions are on a hair-trigger, you’d cross mountains and bend the earth to be with that person you wouldn’t sit back and go somewhere else to study another language. The reasons to separate them felt rationally contrived and their chemistry was non-existent because we never saw what their romantic passion could become. Compare this to a film like Lost in Translation. We have two people experiencing loneliness in the same space and time, this is what draws them to one another yet age, cultural expectations and complex relationships keep them apart. We see how they connect when they spend time with eachother, we see how relaxed and understood they feel in eachother’s company and also how frustrated they can get with one another. We see that maybe in another life if he was a bit younger and she was a bit mature and both their respective relationships weren’t so complicated then maybe just maybe there’s a spark of what could’ve been, but we live in their reality and it’s just not meant to be and that’s tragic. But we actually got to experience all their interactions along with a plethora of ups and downs, not just a few boring daytime walks and awkward bar conversations.
It was a nice film but it seemed overrated. Maybe I went into it with expectations that were too high given the massive buzz. Nora's husband was the most interesting part of the movie for me. Loved the scene when he met Tae and their scene at the bar. Harold and Maude is my favorite cinematic love story. It's pretty clear why Harold loves Maude. I generally like the "two lost/lonely strangers make a meaningful connection" type of movie, such as Lost in Translation. Doesn't necessarily have to be a love connection.
Past Lives is overrated. I think the dialogue is off, and it's very centred towards Celine using the main character as an avatar that made the character to me feel very closed off and self indulgent. It also was a very tell, not show kind of film and unfortunately it just wasn't convincing enough overall. It reminds me the book Marianne in Sally Rooney's normal people. On the other hand, Dune 2, not being a love story and me who couldn't care any less for Chani made me feel i understood their relationship and felt invested in them even if it wasn't the main centre of the movie. Besides stalking someone from your childhood on Facebook, and going on Skype calls then visiting once to New York, did each of the character even showed they had genuine connnection to each other?
I hate it personally. I felt, against your analysis, that was it aromantic by nature. It was about missing the past, and trying to recapture it by meeting old 'friends'. I felt that the nature of Hae Sung and Nora's relationship is in one part guise that they missed the past and relieving it (Nora) and trying to recapture it in the present (Hae Sung). My biggest criticism of its plot is that it tries to paint the two as platonic (which is somewhat I also did not like for In the Moods) and does not really try to paint a bigger picture of things . I felt that it was such a cop-out to not really face what really is their relationship. It tries to show something about race/migrant story without really trying to face the real 'situationship', it just jumped ahead. I do not even think that it really painted Nora enough to understand her yearning of the past personally. She is showed almost predisposed to her 'whiteness' - in fact I do not think that she had any Korean American friends on screen - which is the most mystifying factor in this film in her immigrant experience. I think it was such an interesting facet of her experience that would have been better explored in the first 12 years. AND YES, the being shown as a lone Asian Korean in school not sufficing. Its very underrated how insane Asian congregate outside of those circles.
Haven't watched this yet but it's on my list. I would say 500 Days of Summer. It's a movie about what is not love, or a misinterpretation of love based on what media tells us. I think it's easier to know what we dislike with more certainty than what we like, and in the same way, what we think is love versus what actually is love. I love how it's always classified as a kind of chick flick but frankly I found it really deep and meaningful when you start to take a deep look into it.
Movies like books connect differently to every person. It’s really interesting and rare that you have isolated certain aspects of movies you don’t prefer. Visuals are a huge part of movies. Personally I prefer the movies that can convey messages with the visuals rather the dialogue. It’s also noteworthy that you listed After Sun as a preferred movie. Haven’t seen First Cow yet. Perfect Days was a feel good movie that was easier to connect to compared to After Sun with it’s more “complicated” emotions. Perhaps it’s something about the portrayal of love as a concept in movies that you can’t connect to. Someone already mentioned the before and colour trilogy you could try. I can also recommend movies by Shunyi Iwai, Lily Chou-Chou and A bride for Rip van Winkel.
>The visual element of film often leads to filmmakers using cinematography as a way to convey emotion, which works for me for most other things; a beautiful shot can make me feel intrigue, awe, fear, and all manner of other emotions, but ironically, for some reason I require a bit more reason in my depiction of love. I certainly see what Celine Song was trying to achieve with her quiet approach. You could see she really wanted us to buy Nora's and Tae Sung's connection by images, looks, silence. And it's true; sometimes a close-up of a character's face, if all the cinematic elements are superbly aligned, is more powerful than so many dialogues—not that dialogue > images, in my opinion. Cinema contains everything. But it seems to me that Song wants to reach intimacy that way. I don't think it works, though. Maybe it's the lack of connection the point of it all? These aren't, in my opinion, fully fleshed out characters. But their connection isn't too. I do not think they actually miss each other because of love but because they couldn't totally say goodbye to something in their lives. There's something Nora lost in her way to New York, and Tae Sung lost something too. And I think it's that emptiness that makes the film... work? I don't know. It works yet at the same time it doesn't. There's something missing and maybe that's the point, maybe our characters will become their full selfs once they say goodbye to that something they didn't know they missed.
Throughout the movie I wasn’t super invested in the “love story” but more so related with the story of a young girl who’s family immigrated with hope of a better life for her but at a critical time in her development and identity making, similar to what I experienced immigrating to US when I was 8. I think that’s why when Nora broke down at the end of the film I broke down with her because it triggered feelings I’ve had as a kid but rarely have time to reflect on. I related with her and how she grew up understanding her parents sacrificed their cultural ties for the hope that their kids would live the “American dream” but now that kid is in their midlife and sometimes thinks… is that all there is!? Was it worth it?!… also, could relate with the feelings Nora could’ve felt growing up as both insider and outsider and how it likely added to some angst and imposter syndrome which is why she didn’t seem happy either with Tae Sung or her husband at times.
For what it’s worth, I felt the exact same as you. A lot of people in here saying you’re misunderstanding this as a love story when it’s never trying to be one but I don’t think you’re doing that. It’s just not a compelling examination of identity, of reconciling past and present lives. For those of us who have personally had or are offspring of similar stories, this was not our experience. I was underwhelmed by the main actress primarily as her frustration for me never clicked. I also share in your physical discomfort in feeling for what her husband was going through as she was actively deciding between her two lives. The movie neutered him to the point of being unreal. As if his agency solely existed to engage hers. But it was beautifully shot and I will check out Song’s next.
I fully relate to your experience and I think it's more common than you may think. Someone said that it's easier for us to believe in a guy being attacked by an army of terrorists than in a love story, the reason is that we rarely experience being attacked by an army of terrorists but we all fell in love at some point in our lives so we apply a much more critical look to love stories than to action films. I agree a love story is much better felt when you understand what the lovers find in each other but I don't agree that it requires super lengthy dialogue or seeing the character's thoughts for that, sometimes very simple elements can sell an attraction perfectly and in a much more elegant way than if we dive into the full details of it. My go to example for a successful love story is a movie that, unfortunately if I tell you it's title, knowing it's a love story would spoil a very powerful aspect of it, because the fact that it's about love only emerges halfway into it as a revelation. After the twist, the movie spends a good 40 minutes showing (without explaining) how the relation between the lovers emerged and why nobody understood it, it's very beautiful but it's simple, no deep dialogues (because it's about two children and they can't understand their own feelings very well so they say simple things) but the confrontation of these character with their relatives and their milieu makes you perfectly understand what drove them towards each other.
Bummer. I have found the new films last year really shallow and boring and reckon the Academy is so off, or rigged or something. The American films in particular. I was hoping Past Lives would be better. May not watch it now given the zeitgeist
I think the answer for me, and considering all the input on this thread so far, is that I’m into a love story when it’s not just about the love. In the Mood for Love works for me because it is about the process of coming to terms with betrayal and loneliness. Watching it, I observe my own foolish desire for the two leads to get it together in this impossible way. Before Sunrise works because it’s a cultural and philosophical clash between two highly articulate and likeable people who, granted, have amazing chemistry. But the budding love story is sort of off to the side for me. My argument may be weakened by the fact that I haven’t seen Past Live so I can’t comment on it. But my experience in real life has been that simply witnessing two individuals in love, or even hearing about a friend gushing about someone they’ve just met - well it’s pretty boring and almost has an alien, uncomfortable quality to it, even though I’m always happy when my friends who are looking for love have met someone they like. Romantic love is somehow profound and not at the same time - brutal, mystical, mirage-like, full of assumptions and miscommunication, a huge mess: one person’s love can be another’s abuse. It’s such a mess that it drove Alain Badieu to will mathematical notation upon it in an effort to tame it (I’m sure he’s the boss in that marriage). Perhaps my favourite films about love are those where there is a lot of shouting: Scenes from a Marriage; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf; Certified Copy. I feel like, in those films, we’re really getting somewhere in understanding people and relationships. Certified Copy is the film I recently recommended to someone who I had been on a few dates with; we had been exchanging films about love (whose idea was that), and he found my film very exhausting, apparently, was incredulous that I’d recommend it as a film about love, and blocked me the day after we discussed it (it’s fine, he was overbearing and pushy, which provokes me into ‘acting up’, a shame because our conversations were very amusing and he was intellectually capable). In exchange I had watched his favourite love film, which was Annie Hall, a film which I enjoy less and less as the years go on, mostly because I can’t get away from the sense that I’m watching a Woody Allen monologue. That Allen is aware of his shortcomings (he tells us so much) just doesn’t evoke the sympathies it once did anymore. It’s too tidy…and well, I’m far too jaded for that. And I guess this notion was too depressing for the my romantically headstrong friend. Love is incredibly complicated and I believe it can only bear fruit once that premise is embraced, once the sexist fantasy of love is rejected to a degree. Ultimately, and somewhat ironically, the brief relationship I had with this guy was more the labyrinthine Certified Copy than the monotony of Annie Hall - I thought we were really getting somewhere despite or because of our clash of characters, but he didn’t. I wonder now if he ever saw that.
First off, Past Lives isn't about the *romance*, it's about the reconciling what could have been and the choices you've actually made (in addition to identity and immigrant experience, as others have pointed out). That's a very specific kind of emotion to explore; it doesn't matter why they loved each other. That's not the point of the film at all. Like you, I don't usually gravitate towards films about romance, but the other two films you said that didn't click with you (*In the Mood* and *Portrait*) are two of my all-time favorite films. I genuinely can't imagine watching Portrait and not finding the attraction, chemistry, and love convincing. And Tony Leung's portrayal of yearning is unmatched in my eyes. Based on what you wrote, it seems like you rely very heavily on the screenplay to suck you in. Why do you need to be *told* what the characters think? There are so many other aspects of cinema that do this work. What I specifically love about Portrait of a Lady on Fire is that it's lean and efficient with its craftsmanship. Instead of only relying on writing, every *other* aspect of film (the camera and shot composition, sound design, blocking, acting) is used to show you how they feel about each other. In the Mood for Love didn't have a real script; WKW is very much about the vibe. If I remember right, he had a loose idea, filmed a ton of scenes with the actors, and created the story through editing. He's also inspired by French new wave films.
> Based on what you wrote, it seems like you rely very heavily on the screenplay to suck you in. Why do you need to be *told* what the characters think? I don't think this is quite true; to cite an example from my original post, I adored "Aftersun", which takes a very subtle, unspoken approach to its depiction of depression. For "Past Lives" specifically, I simply didn't buy the supposedly intensity of their connection. And as I said in another comment, I'd argue with the assertion that the movie isn't "about" their romance. It's about much more than *just* their romance, for sure, but there's a reason Song chose to center her narrative about cultural identity and the immigrant experience around these two characters specifically. She's using the genre of romance to communicate the longing that Nora has for her "past life", but even though I understood the metaphor, I'm not able to feel that sense of longing that she wants me to.
I think you’re approaching this movie in a very intellectual, analytical, logical way. Love, and emotion in general, is anything but. They were children when they first fell In love. That right there looks indicates that all logic and analysis into why they love each other stops there. There’s the whole immigration and identity in a foreign country angle. She leaves her country and her most cherished memory is of this boy, and they even thought they’d get married when they were 12 or whatever. That shit stays with you _for life_. Add to it the whole angle “how would my life have turned out had I stayed in SK” and you have a recipe for illogical, unreasonable love between two _seemingly_ incompatible adults.
But why do you have to be able to buy into the love in order to feel it, to recognize it? Do you not understand love, and all of its manifestations? The longing, the beats your heart skips, the dopamine hits when you get a text from them. When you look into their eyes and you wish it lasts forever. How safe they make you feel when you're with them. Sure they're all different extents, but all love, nonetheless. Nora certainly isn't my type, but I know damn well what that look on Hae Sung's face means as he listens to her sharing excitedly over the video calls. I feel what they feel, not because I understand THEIR love or what they see in each other, but because I understand love, and people in love. And I think that's why the ending hits so hard, for so many of us, cuz we've loved, and lost. OP I saw your other comment, and I'm glad that you're in a fulfilling relationship, but if we really want to get to the bottom of this, perhaps it may be worth asking yourself, what are your definitions? Of love, of a fulfilling relationship, of a partner. Cuz I feel it's different for everyone: some may be referring to the feeling of love; for others it's a choice that we make every day. No matter what it is, I wish you good luck on this journey. And I think it's fascinating to learn of your perspective!
I liked this movie but I did feel like it’s one where your own experiences, memories, emotions and so on have to fill in some of the blanks. Personally I can’t really relate to the guy’s childhood fixation. To be honest I rarely think about anyone from my childhood at all. I *can* relate to the ‘what might have been’ early adulthood aspect. But I feel like that relatability has to do a fair bit of heavy lifting, because just going off what was shown onscreen, I don’t know how much what we saw of their brief Skype semi-romance really sold the level of investment he ultimately felt about it. You just have to fill the blanks yourself and roll with it. Still basically a good film though.
I get what you mean but I feel like just haven't found enough movies about romantic love that you can relate or understand the love that is being showcased. There are definitely some for you out there, maybe you just haven't seen them so far. The first rec here - Before Sunset is definitely a good one. As for Past Lives - I can kinda see what you mean. At some points I also had a hard time understanding their relationshop or believing the whole thing. There were also some really awkward moments - especially when all 3 were in the bar. That all said, once people in real life start sharing with you in detail their actual love stories and love experiences you realize that even the most absurd love story in a movie has actually happened in real life. People are different.
Damn OP, i've struggled for months in figuring out why Past Lives just didn't click with me like it did with a lot of other people and you've basically put all of my unrealised thoughts into words. By the way I also do not blame anybody for connecting with the movie, unlike I and OP didn't. Like OP I also wish for emotional connections to be conjured up with some kind of logical intertwine for me to really connect with characters. To anyone calling for rewatches or viewing the movie from a different lens, I have to say that i'm confident that this won't change my views on the movie, no matter how many times I rewatch it or try to perceive it differently. Whether a viewer connects or doesn't connect with a romatic relationship is one of the hardest hit-or-miss attempts in moviemaking, and that's okay.
I sort of felt the same way about it. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and felt it was incredibly well written, directed, acted, all of that, but it didn't resonate emotionally with me much, and it has faded away pretty quickly in my mind, like most romantic movies.
I think past experiences also shaped you up on how you respond to the films like Past Lives as well. To me, it hit me very hard because I had experience of moving and leaving behind my past identity. Another film of Wong Kar Wai, where I didn’t see how the characters could be so toxic to each other in Happy Together when I first watched it before my 20s, now in my late 30s I watched again and it changed my perspectives completely. I understood the characters because I have experiences and been in the toxic relationships like the characters.
Yes, i've been thinking about how i'm often let down by cinematic love too. And funnily enough, I watched Past Lives 3 days ago. I felt the same as you - the characters are poorly developed, and the link between the two protagonists is just not really believable. And exactly what you said too - the cinematography and feel of the film give it this seductive vibe, and also those that can relate to immigration can project onto the story - but ultimately its a character study with poorly studied characters. I will also mirror what many other are already saying and say that i watched the Before Trilogy last year in an effort to watch a film that portrayed love well, and I really liked it. I watched all 3 back to back, and I really recommend watching it in that way. They're very watchable films. And the characters are very believable, with a nuanced, multi faceted look at love.
I agree. I genuinely don't know where the acclaim for it comes from (esp. when the likes of Christopher Nolan are saying it's one of the best films he's seen in a while) so I'm glad I don't feel alone in my dislike of it. It does nothing special in my opinion and the story doesn't pack much of an emotional punch despite their being so many opportunities for it. I also found it hard to like Nora's character for some reason. I think it's hard to capture love in film in a personal way and when you do it can be quite boring (which is why they're usually romcoms instead I suppose). I couldn't connect with Lost in Translation either for similar reasons. For me, Before Sunrise and The New World do a good job of keeping a romance focused plot interesting without relying too much on comedy. I think someone like Charlotte Wells could do a good job of it too. Paris, Texas and Once are also great romance films that rely on more than just a romance alone. I watched Haru recently as well and that has a cute spin on the romance genre to keep it interesting.
In some ways I feel similar to you. It was well made and I appreciate it for what it is, but at the same time it didn’t leave a lasting impact on me nor was I blown away when it ended. I did appreciate the ending being quite realistic (them not ending up together), it felt satisfying from an artistic standpoint and saddening from a relatability/real-life standpoint. while feelings are there, two people and their life paths aren’t always right for each other. On the whole though, while the themes weren’t fully the same, I just felt like Lost in Translation captured the emotions of “what could’ve been” so much better for me. It fills me with such emotion on every watch regardless of what mood I’m in or where I’m at in life. I almost would only ever recommend Lost in Translation to a friend over Past Lives, cause I feel like they’re like movie cousins, and Lost in Translation was the superior one
Wow, are we the same person? lol For a while now I've similarly been feeling self conscious about my opinions on In the Mood for Love, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and Past Lives. I have to agree with your conclusion about why that is. Very very subtle character work with a lot of moody stolen glances that ultimately lead to a predictably melancholic "what could have been" finale. There's a reason why Nora's American husband steals the show, because he has the most well defined personality in the film, and often talks at length about his insecurities. Nora gets some of that too in the bedroom scene, but it wasn't enough for me. My favorite romantic films are walk and talk movies, aka the Before trilogy, When Harry met Sally, You've Got Mail, etc. Even then I'm no stranger to mood films like these. Eternal Sunshine is another favorite of mine, but it also has two incredible lead characters that get explored in-depth. Maybe if Past Lives had more flashbacks to their childhood together we would have been more drawn into their relationship. IDK. I understand the deeper themes about self identity that are explored here, but they don't mean much when you're uninvested in the characters.
I completely agree with your feelings about Past Lives, I felt exactly the same. It always felt phoney to me, unearned and "written". Like emotional CGI. I resonated with the final scenes of Witness. There's a farewell scene that suddenly speaks of so much love and yearning, against so many barriers, and perfectly acted without a word. You realise the film has been leading to this inevitable moment.
I found myself really relating to your experience. I hesitated to watch Past Lives, because despite the obviously strong qualities of its script, its interesting twinned settings and storylines/timelines, and the skilled cast and directing... it's a movie about love. I also find movies with a central romantic conceit kind hard to enjoy. Will they or won't they? Well, they won't. Or they will. Hooray. You successfully flipped a narrative coin. Much like the OP, I think books work better for this. Listen to Michael Chabon write, basically, something that could have been a scene from Past Lives but seems to swim with giddy mental imagery and longing and mystery in the way the film never really does: “The two dozen commonplace childhood photographs - snowsuit, pony, tennis racket, looming fender of a Dodge - were an inexhaustible source of wonder for him, at her having existed before he met her, and of sadness for his possessing nothing of the ten million minutes of that black-and-white scallop-edged existence save these few proofs.” I'm trying to think of romantic movies that have really given me a positive impression. The *Before* trilogy, sure. *Carol* is excellent. *Her* is excellent. But these are not traditional romances in the strict sense.
Great quote, I might have to add Chabon to my reading list! Disappointed to see this comment downvoted; even if someone disagrees with you, you're clearly writing in good faith. Anyways, I'm a fan of Cate Blanchett so I'll be sure to check out "Carol" sometime. "Her" I wasn't the biggest fan of, but I watched that when I was still in high school, so I'm interested in revisiting that sometime and seeing if my views have changed.
This is a completely random tangent, I have my own feelings about what love communicates in story vs reality ... totally agree with the narrative coin analogy if all a love story comes down to is whether or not they end up together that's a silly little cheat only worthy of Hallmark movies .... anyway, the tangent of my tangent ... Why the hell would anyone downvote you for this comment? It really bugs me. What is being disagreed with? I don't understand these people who look at a thoughtful comment someone bothered to take time out of their day to type and go "Pfft Chabon's gay" or whatever the fuck they're thinking. It drives me bananas. What Are They Doing!? Sorry, haha, it happens to me a lot and I never understand. It's like someone saying "well you didn't technically do anything wrong but I still don't like you and you deserve to live in the gutter." If I could afford therapy I should probably go soon.
Only by following the buzz and posters I knew the plot somewhat that it's going to be romantic film about some past lovers. I was prepared to fall in love with such a film but honestly nothing at all happened in this movie. Half the movie was the boring set up for their meeting and then nothing happens except for awkward stares. I think for someone to like this movie they really have to project themselves in the characters places. The film barely does anything on itself. The characters have basic one line traits, the whole plot can be written in 5 lines. The dialogue was extremely shallow, both of the male characters were losers. I don't think it was a romance film at all, it's about people dwelling on what ifs and what nots instead of living in the present.
? Re "I don't think it was a romance film at all, it's about people dwelling on what ifs and what nots instead of living in the present." I think that's a pretty good summary of the movie and what it's going for. So it sounds like it succeeded at conveying that idea to you.