Past Lives
パスト ライブス／再会
The Moonlight essay
CinemaPast Lives and the Intimacy of the Life You Did Not ChooseRead the essayStoryline
The whole story, ending included.
Two childhood friends from Seoul meet in New York twenty-four years later, with her husband in the room.
Seoul, 1999. Na Young and Hae Sung are twelve, classmates who like each other, and their parents arrange a playdate for them. Soon afterwards Na Young's family emigrates to Canada, and the two lose touch. She takes the name Nora.
Twelve years later Nora is a young writer in New York. On the phone to her mother, she finds on Facebook that Hae Sung, just out of military service, has been looking for Na Young, not knowing her new name. They reconnect over video calls, but neither can visit: she is about to go to a writers' retreat in Montauk, and he is going to China to study Mandarin. Nora asks that they stop talking for a while so that she can concentrate on her life in New York. At the retreat she meets Arthur and tells him about inyeon, the Korean idea that two people who meet in this life have crossed paths in thousands of past ones. They fall in love. Hae Sung finds a girlfriend.
Twelve years after that, Nora and Arthur are married. Hae Sung, single again, comes to New York to see her. Arthur admits he wonders whether he is the obstacle in their story, and that his wife dreams in a language he cannot understand; Nora tells him she loves him. The next night the three of them go to a bar. At first Nora translates between the two men, then talks with Hae Sung in Korean alone while Arthur sits beside them. Hae Sung wonders what they were to each other in past lives, and what would have happened if she had never left. When Nora goes to the bathroom he apologises to Arthur, who says he is glad they met.
Back at the flat, Nora walks Hae Sung out to wait for his car. They look at each other for a long time without speaking. He says that perhaps this, now, is a past life, and asks what they will be to each other in the next one. She says she does not know. He tells her he will see her then, and goes. She walks back to the apartment and breaks down, crying in Arthur's arms.
Starring
Greta Leeas Nora Moon
A Korean-born writer in New York who left Seoul at twelve, and is now married to an American.
Nora Moon’s story
Na Young and Hae Sung are twelve and fond of each other when her family leaves Seoul, and she becomes Nora. Twelve years later, a young writer in New York, she finds him searching for her online, and they talk by video; when neither can visit, she asks for a pause, to put her life in New York first. At a writers' retreat she meets Arthur, tells him about inyeon, and marries him. Twelve years on, Hae Sung comes to see her. She shows him the city, tells Arthur she loves him, and at a bar talks with Hae Sung in Korean while Arthur sits beside them. Waiting for Hae Sung's car, she meets his long look in silence, says she does not know what they will be in the next life, and breaks down in Arthur's arms.
Teo Yooas Jung Hae Sung
Nora's childhood sweetheart in Seoul, who looks for her twice and finally comes to New York.
Jung Hae Sung’s story
Hae Sung beats Na Young to first place in class, and when her family emigrates he can manage only a goodbye. After military service he looks for her, not knowing her new name; when she finds him they talk by video, but he is off to China to study Mandarin, neither can visit, and she asks for a pause. He finds a girlfriend. Twelve years later, single again, he flies to New York. After a day in the city, at a bar with Arthur, he asks Nora in Korean what they were in past lives, and what would have happened had she stayed, then apologises to Arthur for talking to her alone. Waiting for his car, he says perhaps this is a past life, and that he will see her in the next.
John Magaroas Arthur Zaturansky
Nora's American husband, whom she met at a writers' retreat, and who fears he is a detour in her story.
Arthur Zaturansky’s story
Arthur meets Nora at a writers' retreat in Montauk, where she tells him about inyeon; they fall in love and marry, and he learns some Korean for her. When Hae Sung comes to New York, Arthur admits he wonders whether he is the obstacle in their story, that she might have married any man like him who came along, for a green card, and that she dreams in a language he cannot understand. She tells him she loves him. At the bar he sits beside them while they talk in Korean, and when Hae Sung apologises, says he is glad they met. That night he waits outside while she sees Hae Sung off, and when she comes back she breaks down crying in his arms.
Why it matters
Past Lives is about the self an emigrant leaves behind, and the people who knew that self. Celine Song drew partly on her own life, and the film treats a first love less as a romance that failed than as a road not taken, a whole other life still spoken in another language. Its quiet boldness is in the marriage: Arthur is not a rival to be beaten but a husband who sees exactly what is happening and stays kind, and Nora does not so much choose between two men as grieve for the girl who might have chosen differently. The idea of inyeon gives the film its tenderness, a way of honouring a bond without acting on it. Song's first feature, it was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. What it leaves is an ache familiar to many who have moved away: loving the life one has while mourning the one never lived.