Past Lives (2023) — complex immigrant romance full of yearning

<p>The first few seconds of Celine Song&rsquo;s decades-spanning, poignantly lived-in debut feature,&nbsp;<em>Past Lives</em>, are about assumptions. As cinematographer Shabier Kirschner&rsquo;s camera slowly pushes in on our three protagonists &mdash; Nora (Greta Lee), Hae-sung (Teo Yoo), and Arthur (John Magaro) &mdash; sitting at a bar together, an off-screen couple remarks on what could possibly be the relation between them. One of them conjectures that Nora and Hae-sung are a couple, while Arthur is their tour guide. The other thinks that Nora and Arthur are the couple in question, while Hae-sung is their Korean friend. All the while, Kirschner&rsquo;s camera continues to unwaveringly move forward, until Nora is the only person in the centre of the frame, her face laced with both a sense of mild excitement and deep uncertainty. The answer to the couple&rsquo;s inquiry, as it turns out, is far more complex than either of them could have anticipated.</p> <p>As the film jumps back 24 years, we&rsquo;re thrown into Seoul, South Korea, where we promptly learn that Nora (then called Na-young) and Hae-sung were childhood friends with an unusually close bond, to the degree where both their parents would eventually set up a date for both of them to further strengthen it. With a relative economy of narrative,&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="https://medium.com/framerated/past-lives-2023-complex-immigrant-romance-full-of-yearning-fd183115145e"><strong>Learn More</strong></a></p>