Past Lives (2023) - Tumblr Posts

"There’s a word in Korean: 인연 [in-yun]. It means "providence". Or… "fate". But it’s specifically about relationships between people."

Past Lives (2023)

Of quiet tragedies developing into devastating losses, which break and build us all...

When reviewing the film a person put forth a critique, talking about how movies are supposed to deal with just one theme. Two at most. Three, if you are really pushing it. This served the basis of their argument regarding the limited magnitude of the whole for them. They thought that in trying to tackle the many strands of a person's identity, the movie lost its opportunity to be something great.

I feel it is this very quality, the film's genuine befuddlement of and the organic attempts to capture the manifold experiences which creates a person and makes them who they are, that resonates with me the most. The way every character is not just an archetype or reduced to being a mechanism for the plot. The people involved are separate entities. They are fully fleshed out, complex humans whose flaws give way to true maturity. Or at the very least, one's trails towards the same.

Every person has to undergo daily roadblocks, triumphs and failures which sculpt not only them but their outlook to the world at large. Such battle leads to facets of formation that construct instinctual responses and deeply entrenched insecurities.

People hold within them multitudes, and no two individuals will look at an experience in the same manner. Or carefully retain similar moments to think on later and feel emotions identical in fashion. Life altering revelations occur every day and it changes who we thought we knew.

And that is why the film is perhaps the most honest reflection of the everyday cataclysms of being. A different Nora, who never left and who didn't aspire to be a better artist, may have been Hae Sung's partner while Arthur never would have stood a chance. However, this is a Nora who does leave, who does have great ambitions, and who does not cry anymore over every little thing because no one cared enough to ask. But Arthur does. And it just makes Nora breaking down in his arms in the end so much more poignant.

Hae Sung may have been a past left behind. And of course she is allowed to be nostalgic about it. Grieve the loose ends and the could-have-beens and if-onlys. But Arthur is still there and trying and Nora can finally be not only the person the world made her into, but also the one she was... before society turned her more malleable yet rigid in the same breath.

Moaning a life which could have been. While living a life that actually is.

I love the poster in this post especially more in light of such a discourse.

Hae Sung is not only a person but a phantom of Nora's past. Of a time she is not sure what to make of anymore. It's gone, yet is also there still. Almost like a piece of her own self she forgot about in the attic, but couldn't let go of entirely.

Maybe it is an incomplete exploration. And maybe, in trying to embody the whole of one human's existence, its fragmentary treatment of themes and lack of closure produced an almost-masterpiece.

Isn't that everyday life though? A work of progress and a work of art. Simultaneously.

Sonder hurts my brain often, but it's also a wonderful thing. And...

I am in awe of this movie and the way it hints at how the many events which turn a person pliable occur almost every second. There are millions and billions of people on our Earth. Many of whom are tackling life-altering decisions right now and are being made into the person we might someday meet.

If you are reading this, then we have at least shared a few decades of In-Yun.

Fate. Providence. Destiny. Kismat.

Or just plain dumb luck.

Whatever it may be... Here's to hoping for more of the same!