“Past Lives,” Celine Song’s achingly beautiful, contemplative drama was a standout at 2023’s Sundance Film Festival. The playwright’s directorial debut follows Nora, or Na Young (Greta Lee), and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), two childhood sweethearts who grow up together in South Korea before becoming separated for more than a decade after Na Young’s family move to Toronto. Later, Nora relocates to New York where she rediscovers her long lost friend on social media and the pair reconnect. However, Nora ultimately withdraws from the long-distance relationship and eventually marries American writer Arthur (John Magaro).
12 years later, Hae Sung finally visits Nora and Arthur in NYC, and a final act sees the childhood sweethearts try to make sense of their lingering feelings in the face of Nora’s genuine love for her husband. Ultimately, the pair come to the understanding that their current situation simply constitutes another of their many past lives, before separating in the knowledge that fate may well bring them together again, in this life or the next.
It’s a profoundly sad yet stirring and hopeful meditation on relationships and the mysterious forces that unite and separate people across lifetimes. Specifically, the concept of “In Yun” — which refers to reincarnation and the idea that people’s relationships are influenced by their interactions in a past life — becomes a big theme in the film. What makes the movie so compelling, however, is that, stylistically, it doesn’t submit to this kind of vague spirituality. Though it’s propelled by the concept of “In Yun” thematically, part of what makes “Past Lives” so mesmerizing is the way in which it simultaneously feels so real. The environments, the story beats, and most importantly, the relationships, feel almost uncomfortably realistic, lending the film a visceral emotional power.
Song clearly had a firm grasp on the fact that relationships were the key to “Past Lives,” and with that in mind, went to great lengths to ensure the interactions were authentic, including keeping two actors separate prior to their on-screen meeting.
Teo Yoo and John Magaro met for the first time on-screen in Past Lives
Plenty of film and TV actors have had to be kept separate during production, whether it’s because they simply don’t get along or, in the case of Arnold Schwarzenegger who didn’t film a single scene with his “Batman & Robin” co-stars, simply because it’s easier to use your body double who’s already in your giant Mr. Freeze suit. Of course, contemplative drama “Past Lives” didn’t have any massive mechanized ice suits to worry about. But Celine Song did have to worry about the all-important relationships between her characters.
For instance, after Hae Sung finally travels to New York to reconnect with Nora, he ultimately has to meet her husband Arthur. The film goes to great lengths to show that Arthur is not some inconvenient roadblock to true love, but simply a person who fell in love with Nora and who shares a genuine connection with her. Of course, Hae Sung also has a deep connection with Nora, so for Song, it was important that the audience feel that clash of energies when he and Arthur meet for the first time. In order to make that feeling as palpable as possible, the director ensured that Teo Yoo and John Magaro were kept apart prior to the moment they first meet in Arthur and Nora’s East Village apartment.
The two actors, who had never met before appearing in the scene together, were allowed to develop a relationship with star Greta Lee, with Song intentionally setting it up so that Lee spoke to both male co-stars about the other. As the director explained to Rolling Stone:
“I sort of purposefully kept them apart, and Greta would talk to Teo and John about what it was like to rehearse with the other. They developed this separate chemistry with her, and a sort of respective jealousy around the other. So when Hae Sung comes into the apartment at the end of the day he’s spent with Nora, and Arthur meets him — that’s the first time Teo and John are meeting, really. And each of them have this idea of the other in relation to Greta as well as her character.”
Keeping actors separate on Past Lives was an inspired choice
Celine Song elaborated on her thinking behind keeping Teo Yoo and John Magaro separate in an interview with Hotpress, in which she explained how she “asked Greta to explain to each actor what it’s been like to work with the other,” thereby ensuring her male co-stars “were feeling a little bit of jealousy and a little competitive.” She continued:
“When they finally meet on-screen, what we’re seeing is these two different chemistries and these two different worlds crashing together — and we get to observe. And this is what the movie is really about, which is there’s a conception of a person that you have in your mind, this idea of the person — and then there’s the reality of the person in front of you. And we get to see the men navigate that together.”
For a playwright making her directorial debut, this sort of thing is pretty impressive. While keeping actors apart is far from a new idea, Song clearly had a full grasp of how crucial it would be for her story and its themes to keep Yoo and Magaro separated. What’s more, going the extra mile to ensure Lee was talking about each male co-star to the other was an inspired choice. The result is on-screen, with the tension and building jealousy as palpable as it would be for the audience if they were in the room with the characters.
This kind of undeniable authenticity from a film, especially one concerned with the abstract idea of reincarnation and mystical forces that guide our souls through multiple lives, is what makes “Past Lives” so special, and such a fascinating study of human relationships.
