Past Lives (celine Song)

Past Lives (Celine Song)

I was born in London, England. My parents worked to raise us (me and my brother) with quite formal speech patterns, no slang from Ireland and no knowledge of Bengali. But now, nearing 50, I hear my dad sing Bengali songs in the shower, and it will never do anything but reassure contentment.

Past Lives is the story of two Koreans who have known each other since childhood: one whose family immigrated to America and changed her name, her primary language and views. At the same time, the young man joins the military and follows conventional Korean life and expectations. 

Nora has integrated, married, and, more than a profession, is dripping with a life of educated New York cultured intelligentsia, also married to her academic writing husband, whose own Judaism is referred to but not the driving force of his own identity, they are quality, almost cliched Americans and she is Koreamerican.

But that is the jump we start with, the way our identity is not steady and holy, but as much a reflection as it is an evolution of our environment.

The question of cultural identity is done with wry warmth and humour throughout, from the micro nostalgia fest of international skyping in the early ’10s to how our lives become judged and missed as we age. While Norah’s past is not explicit politically, scenes such as a conversation with airport security and the hastened marriage for her green card leave it as a filter throughout everything else we see.

Hae Sung’s attractiveness comes to her as he represents a particular ‘Korean masculinity’ that stands him apart from his peers within Korea. He does cut a noble and introverted figure compared to the more braying pack of alphas he sits with in Korean bars. He is not one for showing off but is still concerned with his sense of being ‘ordinary.’

But it is Nora’s film essentially; my father was raised a Hindu, the concept of reincarnation and particular karma is not unknown to our home, the idea of repercussions lasting generationally, but Celins shows how past lives can exist within one lifetime. It’s a melancholy romance presaged by the early strokes of Leonard Cohen in the start. Arthur’s pertinent anxiety and jealousy are subdued yet still present; his learning and embracing of Korean to bridge the gaps between him and his wife can only solidify this is a real commitment of passion.

And the ending is one of closure, a past. I don’t think there would be a single childhood of immigration or a second generation like myself who can’t feel the resonance of what Nora struggles with and questions in herself. And with such a calm and passionate yet not exhibitionist eye. 

It is not a search of Korean to America; it is the search of legacy vs. agency and the need to build that amongst ourselves.

It is a decadent delight of a movie that will last with you for the rest of the day in a warm way. Do see it in the cinema. We need more voices. And it managed to avoid playing the famous blue raincoat at the end. Which was frustrating but shows closure is not always poetic.