Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” embodies the central theme of Celine Song’s debut film, Past Lives: the lingering question of “what if.” The poem and the film explore the theme of unmade choices and their impact on lives. Also, the poem goes deeper, it explains the journey the poet took and the consequences that came along. This also reflects the movie’s theme, the road taken with a lot of what ifs about the road not taken.
What if Na Young never left Korea? What if Nora never searched for Hae-Sung? What if Hae-Sung visited Nora as soon as the topic touched the floor? What if the life Hae-Sung and Nora are in is a past life? What if Nora didn’t meet Arthur but someone else at the residency?
The movie is filled with such what-ifs. And, it’s not just Hae Sung who is troubled by it but also Nora and Arthur. However, it is Hae Sung who carries it. It is he who contemplates it so much that he seems desperate at times.
The movie however doesn’t provide rigid answers to all the what-ifs. We can’t know what might have occurred if events had unfolded differently. Maybe we would have had a different version of ‘Nobody’. Nevertheless, the movie does try to provide an answer; it’s ‘in-yun’, which roughly translates to “fate” or “it was meant to be”, which Nora seems to believe in.
“It’s an ‘in-yun’ if two strangers even walk past each other in the street and their clothes accidentally brush because it means there must have been something between them in their past lives. If two people get married, they say it’s because there have been 8,000 layers of ‘in-yun’ over 8,000 lifetimes.”- Nora.
Ironically, when she first talked about ‘in-yun’ with Arther, she mentioned that it was something Koreans use to seduce someone. Contrary to that, we later see Nora standing to the belief in the bar and even in the bedroom where she replies to Arthur that where she ended is where she is supposed to be.
However, at times it sure does feel as if this belief of her’s is something she uses to console herself. And, it’s understandable. She too is troubled by the path she could have taken.
Considering what Nora said, she and Hae-Sung certainly have in-yun, maybe not enough to be together, but more than enough to be entangled with each other repeatedly. In the past, when Na-Young was still in Korea, they were friends. Their connection in the past keeps influencing them as an adult.
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Hae-Sung was the persistent one. He searched for her. And also, he was the one who crossed continents to meet her.
But why? Why did he long for her? Does he love her? Or, is it just the longing?
Na-Young left Korea with her parents in the year 2000. Only after 12 years, in 2012, do they reconnect that too when Nora, on a whim, decides to search for him only to find that he was already searching for her. During these 12 years, Na-Young has transposed to Nora and gone through two immigrations. The child that she was, was nowhere to be found. She left everything behind. Everything ‘Korean’ was pushed back in her subconscious; even Hae-Sung. She didn’t even remember his name at first.
We aren’t much exposed to Hae-sung’s life but we are made clear that the thought of Na-young kept entering his mind during his compulsory military period in Korea. He finds her and their relationship quickly gains momentum after they are connected through social media. Interaction through video calls with a sloppy internet becomes a routine.
After discontinuing contact with Hae-Sung, Nora goes to a residency where she meets Arthur; her future husband. And, Hae-sung moves on with life as well. He finds himself a girlfriend in China.
So, why did Hae-Sung contact Nora exactly at those moments? It is because both the time he contacted her he lacked a companion, a partner. He wanted someone who he could lean on. He lacked that “one person” in his life. It becomes evident through a conversation he shares with his friends in a bar where he gets a message from Nora and his friends ask if he has a secret girlfriend.
The second time, he visits her when his relationship with a Chinese girlfriend is experiencing hardships. He never contacted her when he was in a relationship. He didn’t even reply to Nora when she visited Seoul and mailed him about it expressing an interest in meeting him.
Hae-sung’s need for companionship is subtly shown in a subway scene where Hae-sung after departing from Nora is writing a long message to her. He is just one click away from sending the text. However, he sees a couple in love in there, together, and happy. He then deletes the text. He knows he and Nora can never be those couples on the train. He can never compromise what is expected of him and Nora can never compromise her Korean-American dream. And, he knows it too well.
A lonesome person wanting to be loved and searching for it is justifiable. But, in Hae-sung’s case, he always went back to Na-Young. It is partly because she is his first love. But, in a larger perspective, he longs for her because he never got that closure. He never got that ‘goodbye’ talk. So, he cemented the idea of Na-young in his heart. He asks his heartbroken friend to cry over a lost relationship. However, he never did the same. He never let Na-young go. This is why he went back to Na-young whenever he missed the companionship. Also, he visited Nora after 24 years to seek that closure that he never got, to say that final goodbye.
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So, all these longings and yearnings. Does it make Past Lives a love story? Maybe. But, it is not a romantic movie.
Nora is Hae-sung’s hiraeth. Hae-Sung, however, is Nora’s conflict. It is after meeting Hae-Sung that she finds herself in an identity crisis. Hae-Sung represents Nora’s childhood and Korea itself that she left behind. During an initial Skype conversation with Hae-Sung Nora asks, “Are you home?”, which he is at and which she is not.
Nora ensures that whatever Hae-Sung wants is impossible and that they don’t have that ‘in-yun’ to be together in this life. In one conversation, she mentions that they were babies back then, referring to their closeness in Korea before moving to Canada.
NORA: We were babies then.
HAE SUNG: I know. And we were still babies when we met again twelve years ago.
NORA: We’re not babies anymore.
Hae-Sung responds that whatever they shared after 12 years, transcending time and distance, they were babies then too. He tries to validate the bond they shared 12 years ago. Nora subtly says that they are not babies anymore. The subtext here is that whatever happened in the past between them won’t be repeated.
Most reviews refer to the marriage between Arthur and Nora to highlight the romance between Nora and Hae-Sung. Indeed, they married because of Nora’s green card. But the marriage was planned. It’s just that they had to marry earlier.
The fact is Nora has moved on with her life. She might love Hae-Sung somewhere back in her mind, in her subconscious. But, the bond Nora shares with Hae-Sung is not that of love but of the place she left behind, the Na-young she left, the homeness she compromised for her dreams, and the tears she didn’t let go.
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One of the movie’s themes is about the Korean diaspora. The hardship, on both personal and cultural levels, she experienced in a foreign land. Many people move to foreign lands in search of a better future. Nora’s parents were no different. Later, Nora followed her parent’s path and moved to New York from Canada.
In one scene, right after she moved to Canada we see her standing by the wall watching other children playing. This represents the journey she is about to start. She will be alone and she will face difficulties.
A young girl from Korea who dreamt about winning a Nobel Prize in Literature has become someone who would be satisfied just by the Tony Award. However, she is still ambitious. She even ‘sleep talk’ in Korean.
ARTHUR: Do you know that you only speak in Korean when you talk in your sleep?
NORA: I do?
ARTHUR: Yeah. You never sleep talk in English. You only dream in Korean.
NORA: I didn’t know that. You never told me.
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The cultural differences of both characters are crystal clear throughout the movie. Hae-Sung is Korean by the root but Nora is ‘Korean’ just at the root. The only people she speaks Korean with are her mom and later Hae-Sung.
NORA: It’s so crazy to see him be this grown‑up man who has a normal job and a normal life… and he’s so Korean. He still lives with his parents, which is really Korean, and he has all these really Korean views on everything, and I just feel really not‑Korean with him. But also, in some way, more Korean? It’s so weird. I mean I have Korean friends, but he’s like, not Korean‑ American, you know? He’s a Korean‑ Korean.
Hae-Sung lives with his parents and meets them daily. On the other hand, Nora shares a long talk with her mother on the phone. Hae-Sung, just like the majority of Korean youths, is studying for jobs. He chooses to learn Chinese over English because it is more useful in his career. Hae-Sung worries about money and materials before marrying. Nora doesn’t.
She also feels more ‘Korean’ with Hae-Sung as he takes her back to where she was, to all the things that could have happened, to all the things that she could have become had she never left. In one scene Hae-Sung mentions that Korea was not enough to satisfy Nora’s ambition to which she forces a smile that is not pride.
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Talking with Hae-Sung was taking her back to her roots. She was learning to type hangul on her laptop just to text Hae-Sung. The possibilities of togetherness were dragging her away from her dreams and she couldn’t tolerate this. She immigrated twice, and coped with different people and cultures; not to go back to where she came from but to achieve something. This is the reason why she left. And this is the reason why she leaves.
One of the most prominent scenes of the movie comes at the end where Nora drops Hae-Sung and heavily returns to her husband waiting for her at the stairs. Her emotions, suppressed for years, culminate and she ends up crying at Arthur’s shoulders. She never cried after realizing that no one cared about her tears which she shared with Hae-Sung during their initial video call. Arthur never knew that she used to cry a lot as a child. She never showcased her ‘Korean’ vulnerabilities to Arthur.
She might have cried for the paths she didn’t take. She might have cried for Hae-Sung. But mostly, she cried in grief at the young Na-Young. She cried because she accepted who she had become. She cried because she finally acknowledged her ‘Korean side’ and her younger self. With this, Nora’s relationship with her husband became more mature. Now, Arthur can finally console her.
Well, this makes the climax not particularly sad but a happy one. Nora accepted herself and Hae-Sung got his closure.
