Past Lives

 

Writer/director Celine Song

Teo Too, Greta Lee, and John Magaro

Celine Song on the set with Greta Lee

PAST LIVES              B                                                                                                               USA  South Korea  (105 mi)  2023  d: Celine Song

I feel so not Korean when I’m with him but also, in some way, more Korean—so weird.               —Nora Moon (Greta Lee)

Celine Song is a South Korean-Canadian director, playwright, and screenwriter whose parents are both artists, moving to Canada at the age of 12, currently based in the United States, having received her degree in playwriting at Columbia University, falling in love with the experimental theater of New York in the 1980’s.  Her play Endlings received its world premiere in 2019 at the American Repertory Theater, having its New York premiere in 2020 at the New York Theatre Workshop, but closed early due to the Covid pandemic, while her first feature-film premiered this year at the Sundance Film Festival to near universal acclaim.  Drawing from her own experience of reuniting with a childhood friend after spending decades apart, the film is ostensibly a study of self-divided identity, a contemplation on love, fate, and the choices we make, following two deeply-connected childhood friends, Nora and Hae-sung, who are each other’s childhood sweethearts who lose touch with one another after Nora’s family abruptly emigrates to Canada from South Korea, where their lives take distinctly different trajectories.  Two decades later, following a series of social media connections that also grows strangely silent, they are inexplicably reunited in New York for one fateful week, where watching Wallace Shawn in Louis Malle’s MY DINNER WITH ANDRE (1981) seems to have been a prerequisite for making this film.  The opening of the film is right out of David Fincher’s The Social Network (2010), taking place in a darkened bar where unseen voices are heard commenting on the imagined connections between an Asian woman and two men, one Asian and one white, trying to figure out their relation to one another, expressing a snide condescension toward an Asian-American woman in a potential relationship with a white man, with Song deliberately toying with the audience’s expectations.  In much the same way, this film offers a similar exploration, ultimately becoming a love story between the girl and each of the two men, as the film effortlessly captures the yearning, heartache, and tenderness through a self-reflective, romantic drama ruminating on the dreams and possibilities of what could have been, quietly exploring how people are tied together, including those we leave behind in order to embark on something new, clearly announcing its intentions when we hear the melancholic anguish of Leonard Cohen’s Leonard Cohen - Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (Audio) YouTube (2:58).  While some have compared this to the yearning romanticism of Wong Kar-wai or Richard Linklater’s haunting truthfulness, that’s a bit of a stretch, feeling more like hyperbole, as this might have more in common with Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari (2020), another semi-autobiographical take on the director’s own upbringing, or perhaps even John Crowley’s immigrant tale of exile, Brooklyn (2015), with Song envisioning a smaller film that achieves a heavily romanticized intimacy with little to no physical contact, where in the words of the director ('Past Lives' Director Celine Song on How She Made ...), “It’s a movie about ordinary people doing something that is extraordinary but mundane.”  Shot on 35mm by Shabier Kirchner, actually written in 2018, this feels more like an overly calculating first feature, bookended by two departures, with smaller moments and very specific observations, posing philosophical what-if questions that feel workshopped, existing in a netherworld where characters wander in and out of what might have been, where it never really comes to life, feeling more like an escape from reality, or an existential quandary consumed by self-doubt, which is then transferred to the audience.  One supposes that nearly all immigrants are left with a looming question about the person they might have become if they’d never left their home countries.  The film begins with Na-young (Moon Seung-ah) and Hae-sung (Yim Seung-min) as children, best friends in every respect, overly competitive in school, where their first date is supervised by their mothers, playfully taking place in a sculpture garden, where Na-young’s mother reveals, “If you leave something behind, you gain something too.”  Living nearby from one another, they always part ways where she ascends up a hill, reminiscent of that steep staircase in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Nobody Knows (Dare mo shiranai) (2004), which becomes emblematic of their separation once she emigrates, leaving Hae-sung behind.  As an aspiring writer, she is looking forward to new horizons, choosing a new name for the journey, the more English sounding Nora Moon, informing her friend, “No one from Korea wins a Nobel Prize for Literature.”  Of course, at that time no Canadian had received one either, rectified by short story writer Alice Munro winning the coveted prize in 2013.   

The film jumps ahead twelve years to Nora as a young adult living in New York City, where most of the film takes place.  Somewhat out of the blue, Nora (American actress Greta Lee) and Hae-sung (German-South Korean actor Teo Too) connect over Skype calls, with its familiar ringtone and inexplicable freeze-ups, while checking their wall of postings on Facebook, where it’s been over a decade since they’ve had any contact, as initially he couldn’t find her because she’d taken the Western name of Nora.  He’s served his mandatory military service and is now a student while she’s embarking on a career as a writer, acknowledging that she only speaks Korean with her mother and Hae-sung, so it’s a part of her that’s underutilized, but everpresent, an intrinsic part of who she is.  While many may commonly associate with these nostalgic social media connections, it may come as no surprise that watching people on their phones and their computers is not what anyone would call a good time, and using it as a vehicle to carry the narrative action is hardly cinematic.  Though it’s completely understandable, especially considering our overreliance on technology today, many may feel not just a lull, but an emotional void at having to watch this play out onscreen in a movie theater, wondering if this is what it has come to in movies today.  While there is an obvious connection between them, it’s also clear they’ve chosen substantially different paths, where he’s seen drinking heavily with friends, downing shots of soju, complaining endlessly about his sorry love life, wanting to learn Mandarin while pursuing a career in mechanical engineering, while she has amusingly shifted her goals to winning a Pulitzer, and later a Tony, as her goals become more provincial.  After speaking to one another at all hours of the day and night, always in a tone of quiet reserve, without a trace of confrontation, where politeness and remaining as inconspicuous as possible appears to be a key aspect of Korean culture, Nora makes a surprising choice, abruptly breaking away from the calls, complaining that she’s losing her focus, as the calls have caused her to stop writing.  Pursuing her own career comes with a price, as she’s forced to shut down a part of her past in order to facilitate her future, recommending that he watch Michel Gondry’s ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004), a film about erasing past lovers from your memory (which we see him watch).  Escaping instead to a writing retreat in Montauk (where the lovers meet after the memory wash in the Gondry film), she’s the first person to arrive, so gets the best choice of rooms, striking up a conversation with Arthur, John Magaro from Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow (2019) and Showing Up (2022), and before that David Chase’s Not Fade Away (2012), appropriately enough the last to arrive, yet his affable and easy-going nature is a counterpoint to her more ambitiously high-strung temperament.  As fate would have it, Nora explains to him the concept of In-yun, a fairly commonplace phrase in Korea, which roughly means destiny or fate, supposedly connected to the Buddhist concept of reincarnation, revealing how fate brings two people together based on countless connections throughout their many previous lifetimes, though she jokes that it’s a classic pick-up line.  Apparently the connection works, as Nora and Arthur are married and living in the East Village of New York, where he has a successful book release while she’s seen in rehearsals workshopping Song’s actual play, Endlings, a reflection of the interplay between narrative and identity.  While the director never shows it onscreen, each of these abrupt exits has a devastating effect on Hae-sung, who obviously spent a great deal of time and energy trying to find her after all these years, but his disappointment is only hinted at through his remorseful drinking sessions, where he is subjected to merciless ridicule from his buddies.  It’s a curious choice, as his vulnerable persona is so much more interesting, as there’s a lot to like, showing substantial humility and emotional depth, where the film is just as much about his loneliness and longing for someone, but Song instead focuses her attention on the more self-centered Nora, who has all the advantages, always thinking of herself first, leading a life of American privilege that borders on arrogance, with both men exhibiting far more self-reflection and sympathy, while she’s simply a much less compelling figure, hardened and more impenetrable, even bossy, necessities perhaps in adapting to her New York surroundings.      

While the Charlotte Wells film Aftersun (2022) revisits the past searching for missing clues in trying to figure out what went wrong, this film scours memories in search of what could have been, as Nora and Hae-sung promised to visit each other, but never did.  Jumping ahead another twelve years, Nora is a successful New York playwright living with Arthur in what appears to be a symbiotic relationship, while Hae-sung can be seen planning a weeklong trip to New York, where his friends needle him about the stormy weather forecast, as he’ll be arriving in a downpour of rain.  While Nora has moved on with her life, it’s clear Hae-sung still has an obvious affection for her, clinging to a distant memory, yet there’s something unspoken between them, which this film would have you believe is In-yun, yet neither one is Buddhist or in any way remotely religious, so this discussion is not organic to the characters, feeling more like a writing exercise.  Yet what this film does well is showcase how easily one can assimilate into a different culture, learn a different language, even master the art of writing in that language, yet it’s harder still to acknowledge how one actually feels, carefully dissected in a scene anticipating Hae-sung’s arrival to New York, Past Lives Movie Clip - When Is He Leaving? (2023) YouTube (1:32).  When the two finally meet on the streets of New York, there are long stretches of awkward silences as they stroll past the Brooklyn Bridge and ride a ferry encircling the Statue of Liberty taking selfies, but as Arthur predicted, he has clearly come to see her.  While she recognizes this, her feelings are less clear, immersed in a kind of homesickness, longing for something that may no longer exist, yet it’s connected to a language and culture she left long ago, something she doesn’t share with her husband, yet is the essence of who she is, becoming a study of cultural displacement and transformation, as she feels like a changed person when she speaks Korean, completely different than when she speaks English.  Looking backwards and forward at the same time, this is less about the longing for someone you left behind, and more about that part of yourself you left behind with them, discovering there are no easy answers, yet the loneliness is acute, reflected in Hae-sung’s solitary existence stuck in a hotel room during the first few days of his trip.  Perhaps the most exasperating sequence takes place at that aforementioned bar in the wee hours of the morning, as Arthur has joined Nora and Hae-sung for a conversation that almost completely excludes him, speaking only in Korean, with the camera never finding him, as if he doesn’t exit.  The way this sequence is shot is intentionally alienating and disturbing, as the director is choosing to avoid her American connection and instead focus entirely on this Korean relationship, accentuating what both left behind.  Song frames the story where the two men are not pitted against one another, but exist in their own light, with Hae-sung finally acknowledging at one point, “I didn’t think it would hurt so much to like your husband.”  Arthur, to his credit, has been completely supportive of this longtime reunion, realizing it will make his wife happy to reconnect with something he can never be a part of, with his magnanimity defining the breadth of what they do have together, a loving bond, where trust is an inevitable aspect of that.  Still, the way it’s filmed, without offering any translations to her husband, seems particularly rude and places Nora in a less sympathetic light.  Part of what’s so compelling here is that Hae-sung never really gets over that childhood connection, that first love, which seems to have a power of its own.  Clearly, at least to the audience, they have so much more in common, and their soulful conversations are much more intense, so many may feel a tug at the heartstrings when he reveals that for him Nora is someone who leaves, but with Arthur, a fellow writer who feels like a safer choice, she is the one who stays.  Is this the right decision?  The same could be asked at the end of CASABLANCA (1942), or that devastating finale of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) (1964).  None of the scenes on the streets of New York feature natural sounds, with the audio done in the studio, while also exhibiting no spontaneity whatsoever, as it is all clearly choreographed and staged, so there is a lack of naturalism in the film, yet the indie music by Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen from the Brooklyn rock band Grizzly Bear is outstanding, providing needed texture.  Despite all the critical acclaim, however, this lacks the emotional urgency of much better films on the subject of migration, culture shock, alienation, and a changing identity, namely Davy Chou’s Return to Seoul (Retour à Séoul) (2022), Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2002), Ann Hui’s Song of the Exile (Ke tu qiu hen) (1990), and most especially Peter Chan’s Comrades, Almost a Love Story (Tian mi mi) (1997), the latter two both starring the incomparable Maggie Cheung.   

Minari

 

Writer/director Lee Isaac Chung

Actor Steven Yeun (left) with the director

Actors Steven Yeun (left) and Will Patton with the director

MINARI                     B                                                                                                                   USA  (115 mi)  2020 ‘Scope  d: Lee Isaac Chung

A troublesome family drama that follows a Korean-American family move from California to rural Arkansas in pursuit of the American Dream, starring Steven Yeun from Lee Chang-dong’s 2018 Top Ten List #8 Burning (Beoning) as the overly optimistic husband Jacob Yi and Yeri Han as the hesitant wife Monica who is shocked to see their new home is a mobile home on wheels set in the middle of nowhere.  Filmed in and around Tulsa, Oklahoma, they bring along two kids, Anne (Noel Cho), the dutiful older pre-teen sibling to 7-year old David (Alan S. Kim,) who has a serious heart defect, where we’re told “his heart could stop at any moment.”  Monica is concerned that the nearest hospital is more than an hour away, and is worried they will go broke, like the last farmer on this same plot of land, preferring life in a city where kids can play in a neighborhood setting close to a school while emergency facilities are never far away.  But Jacob was inspired by the open land and the chance to grow their own food, where his idea of a garden grows into a farm, hiring a dirt poor nearby neighbor Paul (Will Patton), a Korean War veteran, to help out as needed, making use of his tractor, where the two work long hours into the night.  This backbreaking work is in addition to their regular jobs working on a chicken hatchery performing the tiresome, mind-numbingly tedious work of endlessly separating female chicks from the males, discarding the males which are of no use, while keeping the egg-laying females.  Realizing Monica has no friends and no one to talk to, they start to attend church, where they are the only immigrant family, yet they are immediately accepted and embraced into the community.  Based on their clear differences of opinion, which Monica never lets him forget, the two ceaselessly argue in front of the kids, who grow weary of their bickering.  To try to quell the storm, Jacob brings in Monica’s mother from Korea to live with them, Soonja (Youn Yuh-jung), someone to look after the kids while they’re at work all day, but Grandma has a potty mouth, watches professional wrestling on TV, and loves to talk smack when playing cards, relishing her victories at their expense, causing David to believe she’s not a “real grandma” as she doesn’t bake cookies or act like one, claiming she snores and “smells like Korea,” though they eventually grow close, as both delight in eccentric misbehavior.  The film is a semi-autobiographical take on Chung’s own upbringing, where the director himself was a first-generation Korean immigrant growing up on rural Arkansas farmland in the 1980’s and shared the same heart defect, studied at Yale and planned to go to medical school before deciding to become a filmmaker, while the plot similarly follows a family of South Korean immigrants who try to make it in rural America during the Reagan era of the 1980’s.  After a decade of high inflation, rising gas and oil prices, and Cold War embargoes, American farmers were losing their farms, so it was a time when Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp organized the first Farm Aid concert in the heartland of Champaign, Illinois in 1985 (which I happily attended) to raise awareness about the loss of family farms and to raise funds to keep farm families on the land, so there was a patriotic push to value and honor farmers at the time.  The director of MUNYURANGABO (2007), reviewing the aftermath of Rwandan genocide through the eyes of children, was profoundly influenced by the writings of Willa Cather, an early 20th century Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who wrote about life on the Great Plains, capturing the spirit of the original westward heading pioneers, many of them coming from immigrant groups, where the simplicity of ordinary life prevails. 

While this is told in an overly conventional style, no surprise there, what is concerning is the lack of dramatic impact, as this may be a bit too understated and low-key, despite the heaps of praise affiliated with this film, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, winning the Golden Globes Best Foreign Language picture (disqualified as an American Best Film due to the prevalence of Korean language), nominated for 6 Academy Awards, with Yeun the first Asian-American nominated for Best Actor, with the elderly Youn nominated for Best Supporting Actress, this is only the second Korean-language film to be nominated for Best Picture, following all the hoopla associated with Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite (Gisaengchung) (2019).  While the year or so of Covid may have led to a remarkably weak field, it’s still surprising that this film has been heralded as one of the best, as it simply doesn’t compare with the better immigrant stories, even in recent years, which would have to include the works of Roberto Rossellini, Elia Kazan, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jan Troell, Ousmane Sembène, Martin Scorsese, Fatih Akin, Pawel Pawlikowski, and the Dardenne brothers, among many others.  While it does have its own personal touches, much of it seen through the curious eyes of the children, it’s never emotionally moving or involving, largely due to the incessant negativity coming from the wife, whose shrill nature prevents viewers from embracing this story, as she’s constantly undermining the rather heroic efforts of the husband working two jobs simultaneously, never once embracing his efforts, his dreams of growing Korean produce in America, or his everpresent positive spirit, always cutting him down, continually blaming him for the breakup of the family, which is on the verge of separation from the onset, as she refuses to accept the rural locale, preferring to move back to California.  In fact, her lack of emotional support is the central theme of the film, overriding everything else, overshadowing the apparent optimism behind this film.  Even the bland musical score from Emile Mosseri is never inspiring, which is a huge let-down, as there are plenty of quiet moments that could use an emotional push.  From the outset Jacob is proud of his Korean culture, teaching his son to rationally use his mind, declining the mythical services of a professional water diviner, believing he can dig a well on his own property just as easily for free, which he does, but it also soon runs dry, as it’s not a real well.  Wounded pride aside, he connects into a county water supply and pays for the use of water, spending it all on his crops, then shutting it off when it comes to his family’s needs, which has his wife fuming.  Everyone (with the exception of the older daughter) has their flaws, as David pees in his bed at night, with grandma claiming his penis is broken.  As if to offer a remedy, Soonja, using seeds she brought from home, finds a nearby stream and plants minari on the banks, an edible plant, otherwise known as Chinese celery or Japanese parsley, herbs commonly used in Asian diets.  Grandma (who removes the $100 bill her daughter places in the church collection plate) even encourages more physical activity by David, allowing her grandson to just be himself, as it brings him happiness, contradicting the safer and more repressively cautionary measures implemented by his parents, who won’t allow him to run. 

The film isn’t so much about assimilating, but adapting and making their own way, establishing roots in a community, but for that they need to believe in a dream of being successful.  When first the water supply dwindles, followed by successive days of 100 degree heat, and then their first order gets cancelled, leaving fresh produce and nowhere to move it, they are tested like Job seemingly every step of the way, with Jacob and Frank doing yeoman’s work to harvest and save the crop.  If you’re in the farming business, having buyers of your produce seems like the first order of business, but it all happens haphazardly here, where the gist of the film is encountering unexpected obstacles, with Monica watching the money disappear while they’re scrambling to make ends meet, consumed by preventing that next disaster which could wipe them out.  It’s a tenuous relationship with the land and soil, also between themselves, while also being accepted in such a close-knit, small-town community, where they don’t look like everyone else.  At one point, one of David’s friends asks him why he has such a flat face.  It’s not easy being different.  The portrait of the neighbor Paul reveals the extent of how an outcast looks and acts, as he doesn’t attend the church in town, but practices his Pentecostal religion in his own way lugging a wooden cross across the highway on Sundays, bearing his own heavy burden.  He regularly performs exorcisms whenever and wherever he sees a need, outing evil spirits.  In much the same way, Jacob’s faith is continually tested, walking that fine line where his dreams could either save or destroy his family, always having to question whether he’s made the right choice.  In good times it looks like he has, but in bad times a looming disaster lurks just over the horizon threatening to take everything away.  That’s the nature of farming, where you can’t predict the future, as every season isn’t bountiful, yet some seasons are, where there may be some lean years in between, but you keep at it.  While the film is surprisingly free of racial animus, living in an almost too perfect world, Anne, with no conceivable friends, a budding teenager in the middle of nowhere with absolutely nothing to do, gets shortchanged here, as her character isn’t explored nearly as much as David, where he and Grandma kind of steal the show.  Jacob’s desire is for David to have the strength and mental stability even after he’s gone, while Monica is more concerned about his eternal salvation, urging him to pray to see Heaven and awaken healed, living in constant fear that he could suffer an early demise, a fear that is inadvertently transferred onto her son’s tiny shoulders.  She is representative of the here and now, where happiness is based on understanding what she sees, while he is swept up in the possibilities of what hard work can bring, hoping for a financial breakthrough which would provide longterm security for this family.  At one point the parental divide is so prevalent that Monica is about to take the kids back to California with her, but disaster strikes, pulling them together in ways they could never imagine.  Without resorting to a full-fledged melodrama, this is a heartwarming film that offers a sweet and melancholic look at the immigrant experience through the eyes of the immigrants themselves, with its tender moments, yet no big scenes, no emotional build-up to cathartic or transcendent moments, just a realistic glimpse of small yet significant moments in their lives, revealing just how fragile the experience can be.