• Past Lives

9/23/24 (Mon)

Canadian writer/director Celine Song’s debut work is a romantic flick about two Korean childhood friends who are forced to separate at age 12 due to their parents’ jobs. The quiet boy remains in Seoul, while the more vivacious woman emigrates to Canada and then to the US to become a writer. After a 12-year blank, they reconnect thanks to the wonders of Facebook. They begin to chat regularly online, obviously still smitten with each other. The chats become a distraction for the woman, however, perhaps tying her to a past that she no longer recognizes. She impulsively asks him not to contact her anymore.

It is only another dozen years later, marking another turn in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese calendar, that they finally meet in person again when he comes to see her in New York. By this time, he has been dumped by his girlfriend and she is married to a Jewish novelist. They reunite in joy, or what passes for joy in the man’s introverted personality, but soon realize that their chance has gone. Seeing the woman in her new life, the man humbly sacrifices whatever hope he might have held and tells her he is leaving. In a moving ending, they wonder, in the context of a Korean concept known as inyeon, if this life is a past life that they are simply recalling in the future. They might previously have been strangers on a train or a bird and a branch, and who knows how they might meet next time. As he returns to Korea, he tells her that he looks forward to seeing her then, as they separate forever.

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