Past Lives – for the past 48 hours, I’ve been trying to find words to fill the space and heaviness in my heart. It’s not the sad kind of heaviness.. it’s the melancholic kind. The kind that exists inside of us, as its own living, breathing being, without making us sad. The kind that reflects the human condition.. the loss of alternate lives not lived, the what-ifs, the consequences of choices we made and were made for us, the heaviness of incompleteness.
The space between Nora and Hae Sung – literal and metaphorical. The palpable heaviness when they finally meet, the almost-there-but-not-quite hug, the longing and loss of their past selves and past lives. The silences on their Skype calls, the words unsaid, the space between their hands on the subway, the distance between them in the photo on the boat – the beauty.. and melancholy.. of the ‘almost’.
When Nora walks him out for his Uber, the tension is palpable. It is beautiful and sad. It is almost too heavy to bear – my own past lives flashing in front of me. In the last scene, Nora cries – a loss of her younger self, of her past life, of what could have been – of the heaviness of her past and present lives colliding. Perhaps one of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever seen on screen, is, the one that follows – Arthur hugs and consoles her, she buries her face in his shoulder and cries, they walk back in together – him supporting her. That moment captured it all – she could grieve the loss of her past life, and yet, loved him and came back to him; he could feel insecure and confused, and yet, was there for her.
I don’t usually watch movies or tv, but this one will sit with me for a long, long time – neither in a happy nor sad way, in just the way life is.. it will just ~be~.
Ipshita Agarwal 