I have very mixed feelings about this film. i’d been waiting for the film since early 2023 and my anticipation built all the way till august. Maybe that’s why I had high hopes for the film (note that I refer to it as a film after finding out it was shot entirely on Kodak 35 mm - which, by the way, major fan of). After my grand viewing of past lives, part of me felt like it could’ve easily been a short film. As an Asian American and a massive fan of A24, I automatically had high expectations. The trailer gave pretty much everything already that the length of the film just felt unnecessary. I was simply hoping for more.
I don’t usually like commenting on the acting, but Greta’s portrayal of Nora made me feel an insane lack of chemistry between her and Arthur. I found myself secretly rooting for Haesung. Maybe it was her cold and disconnected personality, but I simply didn’t like her character.
Don’t get me wrong. I am in love with the theme of “in yun”, actually it’s one of the biggest reasons that drew me to the film. I had been obsessed with the idea of this concept for a while and it’s something near and dear to my beliefs. The complexity of “in yun”, stemming from the fact that there simply is no direct translation to English, made me curious as to how Song was going to interpret this in the movie. And to a certain extent, I felt that she definitely represented it (my favorite line is when Nora narrates how “if two strangers walk by each other in the street and their clothes accidentally brush, that means there have been 8000 layers of in sun between them”) but I’d definitely love to see it delve deeper. For a topic so common in Asian American film, past lives fell short of any surprises. Am I the wrong audience for the film? But perhaps life really is just this bland in the end. It has its drama, highs, movie-like moments, but in the end we all return to a state of low. Maybe that’s what drew tears to my face - it’s the sense of distance and longing. And I guess that’s just enough to make me remember the film.
