BUT, I went along yesterday to see Korean-Canadian director Celine Song’s film “Past Lives”… and was very glad I did, because it was absolutely beautiful.
At the age of 12, a Korean boy and girl are sweethearts (despite their fierce rivalry at school vying to come top of the class), but then she and her family leave South Korea to make their home in North America. 12 years later, in their 20s, they re-connect via social media (she’s a successful writer and he’s making his way through his military service while studying engineering). They share numerous conversations conducted at opposite ends of the day, on opposite sides of the world… but, at her behest, that comes to an end.
Another 12 years later (she’s living in New York and married to a Jewish American; he’s still single, emerging from a relationship) and he ends up coming to New York to see her (and her husband). They hadn’t seen each other for 24 years.
It’s a story about lost love and childhood crush… about unfulfilled dreams… about roads not taken and lives not led… about unresolved affection, regrets and what might have been. In the film, there are references to the Korean concept of ‘in-yun’, the karmic bringing together of people who were lovers in past lives… with a suggestion, perhaps, that this is a 21st-century version with (as The Guardian’s critic Peter Bradshaw puts it) “their childhoods, preserved and exalted in their memory and by modern communications”. I’ll say no more.
It’s a heartrendingly sad film and yet, in some ways, I also found it rather uplifting and even profound(?). Beautifully acted and directed (and the accompanying music is rather lovely too).
I thought it was quite wonderful… and think you need to see it.
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