Off Script: Homesickness in Past Lives (2023)

The third entry in the column Off Script, written by Lola Carver-Broome.

Illustrated by Esther Fontes

In most ways, my first watch of Past Lives delivered exactly what I expected. Lovely cool  toned shots. A love triangle. Yearning. A good cry at the end. As director Celine Song’s  debut, it was campaigned as a romantic drama, and it fills this mold well in its portrayal of a nostalgic yet impossible love story. The more I think about this film however, the more I  question the function of its romantic elements. By pigeonholing it as a romance, I think  that there is a potential to overlook some of the more complex themes concerning the  emotional loss of migration. In this week’s column, I would like to consider the film using  this lens and examine in what way the broader romantic plot serves as a tool for Song to  navigate issues of identity and cultural loss.  

The film traces 24 years of friendship between Nora, formerly Na Young, (Greta Lee) and  Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) as they navigate life apart after Nora and her family emigrate to  Canada at the age of 12. The pair reconnect another 12 years on in New York as Nora has  to reconcile her past life with her current one. She is now a successful playwright, with a  new husband, and finds herself suddenly confronted with her long-lost childhood love. It is  loosely autobiographical and based on experiences from Songs own experiences of  emigrating from Korea to Canada.  

On the surface, this reconciliation seems to be a choice between Hae Sung and Nora's  husband Arthur (John Magaro). The group of three go to a bar together with Nora initially  translating the conversation for her husband and friend, who speak only English and  Korean respectively, before talking in Korean to Hae Sung only. It’s hard not to feel a bad  for Arthur here as he is cut of linguistically and physically as the pair begin to engage freely  with one another. Simultaneously though, the audience feel pleased for Nora and Hae Sung to be reconnecting and for Nora, in particular, to be communicating in her native  tongue. Through these tensions surrounding language, the issues of cultural identity peek  through. Nora’s desire to reconnect with Hae Sung represents her longing for her home  country, her language, and her past. The heartbreaking thing about this film is that there is  no ‘bad guy’. Nora is not bad for wanting to reconnect with her life in Korea and yet Arthur is  also not unfounded in his insecurity towards his wife’s past with Hae Sung.  

Still from Past Lives (2023)

Nora is presented as having a deep affinity for Korea. However, despite her fondness, we  see her struggling to fully maintain her connection, forgetting parts of the language and  cultural custom. Before Hae Sung's arrival, her view of Korea existed through a screen and  in memory. She could sit comfortably in her disconnect from her past and the life that she  left behind. For her, and us as viewers, Korea lies in a nostalgic childlike realm, removed  from the reality we are offered in Nora’s present life in New York. 

Hae Sung therefore represents not only the what-if of their relationship, but of a whole life  and identity lost. He embodies Nora’s life in Korea that was cut short by her emigration,  intertwined with her memory of the city she grew up in. Appearing as a fully grown man, he  serves as proof that life in Korea went on without her. She describes how ‘not Korean’ she  feels when she is with him, aware of the distance in cultural identity that has built between  them. In this way, the emotion surrounding their reunion comes from Hae Sung's function  as a living symbol of the continuation of life in Korea, one that Nora, or Na Young, is not a  part of. 

Arthur asks her if he she is attracted to Hae Sung, to which she replies, ‘I think I just missed  him a lot. I think I miss Seoul’. For her, Hae Sung is Korea. He is entangled in the person  she could have been. He is a ghost of her past life come back to life years on.  

Still from Past Lives (2023)

In the film, the notion of a past life is referenced by the characters when talking about the  In-Yun, the Korean concept of providence. This is the belief that between any two people  that meet, even in passing, possess In-Yun between them from their past lives. Once this  In-Yun is compounded 8000 times the two people are destined to be together. Hae Sung and Nora find comfort in this, assuring each other that they will find each other again in the  next life. The sense of loss that comes from migration is felt in this notion too. In leaving her  home country, Nora left behind the lives the pair could have lived together. We see how  migration becomes a disruptive force against the fate of In-Yun, interrupting a spiritual  predestination that is trying to pull Nora and Hae Sung together.  

Arthur seems aware of this saying how in the epic story of the reunion of these childhood  sweethearts he would be cast as ‘the evil white American husband standing in the way of  destiny’. If I could speak to Arthur, I would tell him not to worry. It isn’t so much Hae Sung  

himself that Nora yearns for, it is the concept of her lost Korean self that she misses.  Although I’m not sure how reassuring that consolation would be.  

However, just as Nora’s mother tells her in the film, ‘If you leave something behind, you  gain something, too’. Migration isn’t all loss; like Celine Song, Nora is achieving her dreams  of becoming a playwright, living in New York, and has a great relationship. Yet, being  confronted by the living, breathing symbol of her lost Korean past brings forward the  consuming question of ‘what-if’. Not only the ‘what-if’ of if she ended up with Hae Sung,  but what that would have meant for her own personal identity and her connection to Korea.  

If you liked this film, you might like:  

La La Land (2016) - another love story that ‘should have been’  

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) - the untidiness of love