Past Lives is no ordinary story of love. It could be a tragedy. It could be a story about connecting, reconnecting, and disconnecting all over again. Perhaps it’s about losing, then gaining, then losing again? Or, it could even be a existential love story about what might have been? Writer/ director Celine Song lavishly embraces all these themes in her uncluttered directorial debut with poise and precision. Celine spoke with Creative Screenwriting Magazine about her writing process.

“I think that some of Past Lives is more about the reality of what it’s like to be a person who lives through time and space. I think just like anything in life, you can see it as a tragedy, or a comedy, depending on who you are as a person,” elaborates the filmmaker.

If Past Lives is a romantic tragedy, it’s more about Nora (Greta Lee) having to make a tough, but tragic decision of whether she’ll stay with her husband Arthur (John Magaro) or her childhood friend Hae Sung (Teo Yoo). “I also think here’s a part of it where this movie is about the cosmic joke of it,” confounds Celine. Whatever your take on this transcendental love story, it doesn’t neatly fit into any genre box.

Past Lives examines the various iterations and notions of love – ranging from dating and marriage through to a platonic connection. A person can feel the different textures of love based on understanding, acceptance and respect. “I think those are the things that are a fundamental part of both Hae Sung and Nora’s and Arthur and Nora’s love for each other.”

Celine Song drills deeply into the different layers of love ranging from the “storm and drain romance” of two people being in the right place at the right time to the cosmic connection two people can have while being geographically distant. The variable nature of love in Past Loves is depicted through themes of fate and destiny. The film touches on aspects of looking forward and going someplace to meet your destination, looking back and observing an alternative reality of how things may have been, or simply accepting the present without over-analysis of the situation.

What Is In-Yun?

The East Asian concept of In-Yun differs from the western understanding of fate and destiny of finding one’s destiny or discovering one’s fate in that posits the influence of previous connections based on something in their past lives.

The Eastern philosophy of interpretation expounds that destiny is not something to be found or controlled. “It is something that you have to learn to accept over time,” adds Song. It is a changing idea rather than a fixed destination.

This nuance is instrumental in Celine Song’s tender film. Nora and Hae Sung area hardly exes since they last saw each other as children. “All they did was hold hands once as children.” It’s not even clear that there is a residual friendship between them after a decade apart.

Despite the triptych, Past Lives isn’t a love triangle by any means where Nora needs to make a decision between two suitors – there is a winner and a loser. “It’s about the way that Nora chooses her own life. She’s also able to confirm her own life in doing this.”

Celine Song. Photo by Matthew Dunivan

Neither Nora, Arthur, or Hae Sung knew what to expect when Hae Sung unexpectedly reached out to Nora and came to visit her in New York. Neither knew what they wanted despite all three of them being affected by the visit. “At first, I don’t think that Nora necessarily knew what she wanted. I don’t think she knew that she needed this encounter with Hae Sung.”

Hae Sung realized he needed closure from their connection – the proper goodbye he felt he was owed. Nora initially didn’t realize both of them needed it. “And only when they were able to say goodbye properly, as adults, is she able to cry. I don’t think that she knew that this little girl that she left behind, a part of herself needs to be grieved even until she, until Hae Sung came to visit her,” ponders Song. For Nora, Past Lives is about self-discovery and learning what she wants.

Despite Arthur and Hae Sung being on opposite ends of Nora’s affections, Celine Song believes Nora is the most conflicted character “because she has to hold the center. She has to hold both of those guys and also take care of them. It’s aided by the care and maturity of the two guys, but she is the one who has make sure that the both of them are okay.” After Nora lets one of them go, “she’s able to let herself go because then she’s finally able to just be by herself.”

Male Bonding Or Male Rivalry?

The intricacy of Hae Sung and Arthur’s relationship is subtle and considered. Neither is explicitly vying for Nora’s commitment or pressuring her make a choice between them. Each has met and fallen in love with a part of Nora at a different stage of her life. Hae Sung only really knows Nora as a child and Arthur only really knows her as an adult. Neither can fully understand the other part of Nora’s life. “When they first meet each other, they both feel so completely vulnerable because the other person is a reminder of their own lacking.” Each acknowledges what they have and what they don’t have with Nora.

“The song that plays during this scene is, “You Know More Than I Know” by John Kale. That’s what that scene is. They are complete together, in that they know the whole of Nora together. And they also know nothing of Nora together.” Hae Sung and Arthur mutually respect each other as they realize that each loves the same parts of Nora despite meeting her at different stages of her life. Although one man must ultimately bid farewell to Nora, their unbreakable connection still exists.

Cultural Clash

Celine Song tantalizes the sparseness of Past Lives with flourishes of culture differences. Hae Sung is “Korean-Korean” who speaks little English, Nora is “Korean-American” who has acclimated, and Arthur is Jewish-American. Song salutes issues of heritage and identity, but won’t allow her film to be bogged down by them.

At the heart of the story, culture is about migrating to a new place and adapting to it; whether it’s moving to a new state or a new country. Song believes everyone can relate to this experience of change. “It’s about starting a new life. I think the thing that mattered to me the most is the kind of the conversation that Nora and Hae Sung have at the end of the film where they say, ‘Okay, you know, you’re somebody who leaves, right? And then to me, you’re somebody who leaves.‘” This is the crux of the immigration experience.

Nora (Greta Lee) & Arthur (John Magaro). Photo courtesy of A24 Films

Part of Song’s motivation for casting Hae Sung and Arthur was to make them as different as each other, “even beyond race and language. I just wanted them to feel so different in their chemistry with Nora. There’s some real magic there that can be excavated.”

Hae Sung and Arthur are snakes shedding their skins. “You can fall in love with an egg or you can fall in love with the fully grown snake. Each understands those layers of maturity and realizes one can’t stay,” opines Song.

The kernel of the idea for Past Lives germinated from an incident in a New York City bar. Celine was the translator between and Korean man and her American husband. Although her film isn’t a personal diary, “it was helpful was that making something that’s personal you are able to acknowledge your own human response to a situation like that. It doesn’t have to be exactly how you experienced it either.” This personal element allowed her to follow her sense of what worked in the story and what didn’t.

However, making a story too personal may detract from the muddiness of the characters’ feelings while trying to install a sense of clarity. “I want to make something clear from the muddiness of the feelings,” she declares.

Writing Process

Past Lives delicately balances space, contemplation, with density. Celine Song confesses to procrastinating (or percolating) for months before she eventually committed fingers to keyboard. “Once I had a structure and understand the story, I wrote it in a month.”

Song wrote three full drafts of her screenplay. The first was a considerably longer version of the story and the second was more streamlined. Celine added the bedroom scene during the third pass where Arthur and Nora discuss why their marriage is successful. This scene was added to counterbalance the more romantic “falling in love” scenes.

The filmmaker confesses that one of the more difficult scenes to write was the first Skype conversation between Hae Sung and Nora. They finally reconnect after years, but the conversation became awkward at times; not through anxiety, but from a lack of things to say. Song wanted to capture the rise and fall of their long distance platonic relationship. “It has to be hefty because it has an emotional impact. It has to earn it both the first time they meet each other, and then also when they break up.”

Past Lives bids farewell on a sombre note. Nora sheds a few tears, but there’s a sense of peace, acceptance and relief. She is free of an emotional burden. Everyone has changed in a small and subtle way and ready to embark on the next chapter of their lives.

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