This film will destroy you emotionally – and is already my first top 10 candidate for 2023

It’s one of the finest Berlinale traditions: every year the festival brings at least one film with it that was screened a few weeks earlier premiered at Sundance celebrated and delighted the critics. This year’s contestant is titled Past Lives and tells a love story that we’ll see a lot more of in 2023. The film even has Oscar chances.

It’s fascinating that this film of all things is making such waves, because it’s not loud and gaudy at all. He also doesn’t scream for attention and panders to being an indie darling. In fact, we have one in playwright Celine Song’s directorial debut silent, intimate and honest work to do that puts itself in the minds of its three main characters with amazing empathy.

Berlinale highlight from Sundance: Past Lives is already one of the best films of the year

The focus of the story is Nora (Greta Lee). Her family emigrated from South Korea when she was young and have one in Toronto found a new home. Not only did Nora leave behind her home in Seoul and her original name, Young Na. She has also turned her back on childhood friend Hae Sung (Teo Yoo). Twelve years later, they get in touch again via Facebook.

You can watch the trailer for Past Lives here:

Nora now lives in New York and wants to build her own life as a playwright there. She spends many hours over Skype with the person she actually only knew as a boy. When Hae Sung makes it to the US metropolis after another twelve years, Nora is with her personal life moved on and has married Arthur (John Magaro). The three meet in a bar.

That encounter in the bar is the first thing we see in Past Lives. Commented on by the observations of a strange couple, we get to know the central figures and puzzle over their relationship to one another. A playful introduction that actually offers us a few pertinent thoughts. But the truth behind it is significantly more complex. So we have to go back to the past.

An emotional force: Past Lives tells a tearing love story in three chapters

Past Lives is divided into three major chapters. After the short prologue we find ourselves in Seoul and get to know Nora as teenagers. The world in which she moves is simple and austere. The adults rule the life. Nora’s first encounter with Hae Sung is formally arranged. What comes out of it, however, can no scrutiny checkingeven if it temporarily disappears.

Once Nora and Hae Sung find each other on the internet, the feelings from before return. However, it quickly becomes clear that we are dealing with a love story in which love is not simply expressed. Not only the spatial distance stands in the way of Nora and Hae Sung. Both need to figure out if they are into the person opposite or the person from memory have fallen in love.

Celina Song, who draws on her own experiences for Past Lives (her family also immigrated to Canada when she was 12 before moving to New York), transports the (un)familiar engaging in her film. Nora and Hae Sung have to get to know each other a little bit each time, although they are forever connected, especially when Arthur comes into the picture.

Past Lives wanders between Sleepless in Seattle and David Lean’s Encounters in calm imagery

At times, Past Lives feels like a gentle blend of rom-com classic Sleepless in Seattle and David Lean’s masterpiece Encounter. All three films penetrates one shattering sense of inaccessibility and the question: “What if?”. Where many love stories sooner or later give a signal in which direction the feelings are developing, Past Lives constantly explores them anew.

There’s no easy answer to the conflicted triangle, but neither is there a mean pain or a shocking revelation that eases any alienation. Song explores each character with equal attention, unearthing many unexpected moments, especially in terms of impress self-reflection – sometimes in the form of an outspoken dialogue, sometimes as a silent gaze.

When Arthur says that he actually fits the stereotype that straddle true love, the words don’t feel like a forced detour to the meta-level at all. Song’s script is so delicate that the sincerity of the figure untarnished remains: Arthur does not rise above the love story. Instead, he shares his vulnerable side and remains a part of it.

At the beginning in the bar we can only guess what really connects the three. We can analyze their externals and surfaces. How are they dressed? What does your posture say? And which looks meet? In the end, the observations seem completely banal. The strange couple who introduces us to the film weren’t all that wrong at times, but they didn’t even begin to realize how deep the story goes.

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