Hey, film Spotters. The film Spotting archive has reviews, top fives and more going back to two thousand and five. This week, with Selene Song's Materialists new in theaters, we're sharing our twenty twenty three review of Song's debut Past Lives.
Past Lives narrowly missed our top tens in twenty twenty three out them, but we did both like it quite a bit. From June twenty twenty three. Here's that review.
What a good story this says.
Childhood sweethearts to reconnect twenty years later and realized they were meant for each other, and the story I would be the eviloid American husband's standing in the way of destiny. Shut up. We just can't get away from storytelling. Here on this week's film Spotting, a bit from the trailer for Past Lives, the feature debut from writer director of Selene's Song. We have been hearing about this film, Josh, since January, when it premiered at sun Dance to almost
universal acclaim. It was then picked up by A twenty four for distribution. That's usually a good sign, and then in May it was program is part of the Chicago Critics Film Festival. More people we like and trust got to see it and praise it. I will ask you if it managed to live up to all the hype in a second, but we will quickly set up the plot. The clip you heard more or less tells you everything
you need to know. Twenty years or so after getting separated, when one of them emigrates from Korea to Canada, two former childhood sweethearts reunite, complicating things. The one that left Greta Lee's Nora is happily married to John Mazarro's Arthur. The long lost friend, Hey Sung is played by you Tail. A simple story, Josh, why all the praise?
Oh?
A lot of reasons? This is delicately and quite beautifully made, especially for a feature directorial debut. I think for me the storytelling is just an intriguing premise and interestingly handled inventively spun out as a narrative. For me, it's these two performances. I just stunned at the sense of connection they could establish between these two characters who are mostly
not together. And then what happens when they do come together is this electricity that is, it's like an impossible scenario romance, which we've seen others of those but I don't think those always capture the combination of rigria and romance that are all taking place in one scene. And again it's due to songs staging to her decision of when to bring them together and how to bring them together.
That's absolutely a part of it. But it's just these two in You and Lee, the way they I mean, we talked about you know who did we like that are a little bit Shortzman or Johansson in Astroid City. And I don't want to always pit two leads against each other. But for me, when I think about this movie, Lee is wonderful. You're just kind of like Crumple inward.
When I think about how tail You looks at her, how Hessong looks at Norah here when she's looking at him, when she's not looking at him, it is the mo It is the saddest thing I think I've seen an screen in a long time, and the way he embodies that. This is an actor I'm mostly unfamiliar with. He was in decision to leave and a number of other projects he's been in, but this is the first time I've
really watched him closely. It's stunning what he can encompass without saying much, and then when he does deliver some of these lines written by song, it's just like punches you in the gut after you've already kind of like been crumpled.
Yeah, it's a really wonderful performance, right, and they both are. But I too, And I just saw this late last night and am still thinking about it quite a bit. When I think about the film and I think about the moments that are the most kind of subtly devastating, I am thinking about his face. And I think part of that is that, for lack of a better term, there's a little bit of a puppy dog to him.
He seems to be the one who is holding on to feelings more strongly about her, for sure, and there's a lot of reasons for that, including that she has moved on and she's gotten married. But I think it actually fits with their characters too. And I'm not going to ruin the line at all, because there's a great revelation between the two characters, and even saying that makes
it seem bigger than it is. No, it's a it's a profound moment, but it's not a huge plot development or treated like an epiphany, because this is a movie that is really about these small interactions and these quiet moments. I want to talk about that a little bit more, but there's there's a realization about the differences between them, or the main difference between them, and that's who She is, the one to have some ambition and to want to always be moving forward, and he's the one who wants
to stay in the past a little bit more. Well, you read that, You read that in every every look, every time he looks at her, you sense that in him, And for me, You're right. Delicate's a great word. This is a movie that is in that same realm as films by directors like Celine Siama and Koganata, where they are full of dramatic tension. There is conflict, but the film at no point escalates any of it. And I think it ends exactly where it should and how it should.
But all I could think about, Josh was Wow, this is where a lot of films that would be mining similar material. This is where they'd be just beginning. This would be this would be at best the middle of the film, and maybe maybe more, because those movies would be all about taking those tensions and trying to ratchet them up. And create more drama, and ultimately it would probably be more mellow dramatic, and we don't get even a hint of that here in this film.
Yeah, I think it ends just perfectly for what it wants to do in the story that it's telling. Yeah, it's fascinating to think about as you're describing his character. You're right, and those qualities that make us both feel drawn to him and remember him. I think there's a braveness to Lee's performance as Nora that she doesn't shy away from making Nora somewhat of the harder character, the
more driven character. And so maybe it's not fair for us to say, well, I like this performance better, because really she they're just giving us who these characters need to be. This relationship would not evolve this way if Nora were less driven, less headstrong, less independent. Those are all qualities that are positive qualities of hers. It's why she's able to make her way through this early childhood
while middle school when her family immigrants experience. It's why she's able to establish this artistic career and move to New York City and have the level of success that she does have. So these are all good qualities, but when we're seeing them strictly through the lens of this relationship, it's tempting to say, oh, man, like, if only she would open up to him a little more, that's kind of what we want. But again, the trick of this movie is that they're just more learning that where they've
ended up is probably where they should be. And perhaps she just comes to recognize that a little sooner than him because of her internal makeup, her psychology. And that's okay, But you do still come away feeling not that they should have gotten together, that he was right, that his pining should have been real warded. I don't mean that at all, but it's just more in terms of the character that at least I became a little more attached to. And you can see it in the way, you know
these are separate sections. When they do separate again, she's the one who says goodbye, and you know, at least in the first two rather curtly, these are decisive. It's again part of her character, like we're separating, that's what I've decided it's gonna happen, and this is how, and it's just done, and he's kind of left there in you know that beautiful shot that she actually returns to of diverging alleyways that they separate as kids. We see
early on. It's like in the first ten minutes that's how Nora knows the path she's going to, and she's gonna head up it after sayta quick goodbye, and he is going to linger a bit and look uncertainly at the direction he's going to head away from her.
Yeah, and everything you said is true. But part of the magic of this movie, in both the performance of Greta Lee and so songs writing and direction, is that you never feel as if she's somehow cold no, or that she's not. She's not responding to him with as much longing or at least strength of feeling that he's
also showing. And they're processing it in different ways, including she is the one, as you said, who earlier on because they this is something I didn't get from the from the trailer, they actually do reunite earlier in their lives, and then where we see a good chunk of the film,
they're now twelve years beyond that. So we see him twice come together, but they separate each time for an expanse of time, and you you understand that she's making that decision, but she's also making it and she's making that tough call because of the weight, the weight of this relationship on her and the fact that it doesn't seem to ever have the potential future that they both want. So you are always feeling both sides of her character.
And what is I think you could say a dilemma, this dilemma of this this space that is between them. I won't say it's a disappointment because I didn't. I didn't hold it against the movie, Josh. But maybe where it was different than my expectations is I just got the sense from the trailer that it might be even a little bit more poetically realized, a little more experimental visually, how it sort of danced around in time, and it's fairly linear. You know, it starts in the past, it
works up to the present. There are these occasional flashes back to who they were and moments they shared together, but it is all beautifully observed, and those flashes to the past are perfectly employed. Yeah, and I also think that that song intrinsically understands and feels exactly when to use and hold on a longer take and let the moment play out in front of us, utilizing two shots as well, versus relying on a lot of cross cutting or putting them in their own individual frames. We are
often looking at these characters together. Now, there's also some moments where there's three characters in this space, but the camera is only showing us too. Yes, and that matters a lot as well. But it's always about the shared experience that they're having. And so then I think that's what heightens as well, every look and gesture and reaction.
Yeah. So the filmmaking, You're right, those insert shots of earlier moments, meaning twelve to twenty four years earlier moments are perfectly handled in one to drop them in and how long to hold them, not to push it too hard. And also what I liked about her filmmaking style was the way she moves the camera. I think you said patiently, which is right. It's almost as if the camera is going to slowly track along or even pan until it
finds exactly what it is looking for. A couple of early examples of that would be when she does announce as a middle schooler, as a young girl in class at school to another girl that her family is leaving, and the camera kind of starts on that conversation and then slowly finds its way without cutting to see Hassung sitting there hearing this, and you get the sense this is maybe the first time he's heard it, maybe not, but it's it's really becoming real for him in that moment.
And I just like how we don't start with him and overhear it. The camera just slowly moves there. Another shot, and this is later. It's a jump ahead when he's serving in the army and the camera starts on a bunch of young men sitting eating their food. I think everyone, almost everyone is eating alone. It's a very despondent, lonely scene. And it starts with a different group of soldiers until it drifts to the left and then finds him and he's there alone.
We even have to find we have to find him as viewers have to pick him out.
Yeah, good point, because he's not the only person on the screen. And then it rests there and lets us watch him. Those are just two minor examples, but that's felt kind of like the primary style she employed, which again is thoughtful, contemplative and to your point, allowing us to consider maybe not in that last example, but the classroom one. Everyone involved in this drama.
Well, how about just the economy of it too. Twelve years later, the first shot we get after that text, I think it says twelve years pass is this military moment and them all eating, and it lasts maybe thirty seconds. I feel like that's really all we get of him
in that moment. It's as if that's that's enough. Zilian Song understands that, like just from getting the feeling of the loneliness of that scene and understanding that he was in the military, Like, we are getting some information about him, but we're getting it just through twenty to thirty seconds of really, I think a single shot. And this is something that it's in the trailer, this concept that's invoked
of of Inyon. I hope I'm saying somewhat correctly, this idea of fate people coming together as if they were destined to and and they've encountered each other in past lives,
as the title suggests. But I love how the movie doesn't overplay that doesn't doesn't try to get sort of too mystical with it, and yet watching it you do feel I felt the whole time that I I was watching characters, and certainly by by the end of where it comes out, I felt as if I was watching characters who were part of something larger that that they're They're considering these these important questions about about their identities, not just love and happiness, but but fundamentally who they
are as as people and who they who they want to be as people. And where I'm going with this is this is a half baked idea. Again, I haven't had enough time to actually try to come up with an eloquent or maybe logical way of phrasing this, Josh, but I felt by the end that Past Lives is the year's other great multiverse movie, despite the fact that it's so grounded in everyday life and it's not as if we actually travel to any alternate universes or other realities.
But I felt as if these characters truly were part of this larger continuum, that there might actually be other versions of these three characters interacting with each other past, present, and future.
He was just this kid in my head for such a long time, and then he was just this image on my laptop, and now he is a physical person. It's really intense but I don't think that that's attraction. I think I just missed him a lot. I think I missed soul.
Did he miss you?
I think he missed the twelve year old cry baby. He knew a long time ago you were a cry baby. Yeah, most of the time, he'd have to just stand there and watch me. When is the leaving again?
When you consider the John Baguyro character, her husband, her eventual husband, which is a significant part, it's not just like, you know, he shows up once and yeah, we know who he is, and then that's always in our minds. No, he becomes an integral member participant in this story, which speaks to your point. I think about there's another universe where they do not meet, and she's actually we learn about that concept in Yon when she is speaking with
him and first meets him out a writer's retreat. That's the first time it's introduced into the story. So, yeah, there are some maybe less Spider Verse and more everything everywhere all at once vibes going on here with the alternate romances that could have been.
Yeah, and just connecting to that a little bit and going back to the klip we played. I also really do like the way song plays with that idea of narrative framing, and that the movie opens on the camera showing these three characters sitting together later in the film, sitting together from across the bar, and we only hear the voices of people. It's our eyes looking through the camera, but people saying, what's their story? Who are they to
each other? Asking themselves all these things. Well, we of course are trying to make sense of that as well as viewers watching that, and we're paying attention to all of the body language and how they're sitting near each other, and who's looking at who, and who's smiling and is at a wistful face? And what does that mean? And then when we returned to that scene, it's not as if, at least in my recollection, song completely subverts it and turns it all on its head in some radical way.
But I noticed all these these moments where the way I interpreted it as a viewer at the beginning, not knowing the characters and also not actually being able to hear what they're saying, it was completely different, Josh.
It was.
It was a completely different experience later informed with more knowledge.
That whole sequence where the three of them go out to dinner and then afterwards hang around for drinks as well. I will I'm very eager to watch quite closely on a revisit, and I will be seeing this movie again because it does ultimately work. But in the moment, as you're describing, there are some interesting choices in terms of where the camera's placed, as you said, who's in it
and who's not, and the editing as well. That was a bit jarring, but has to be to a purpose, I'm saying, just because of the ultimate effect of the sequence, but also knowing how we've discussed, you know, the careful choice is made earlier. But it's a very complicated sequence in just the filmmaking, let alone the performances that are going on there.
You strangers walk by each other in the street and their clothes accidentally brush. That means there have been eight thousand layers of emyon between them. Instead.
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