Echoes from Past Lives
Examining the Narrative of Identity, Belonging, and the Price of Choices
I just came back from watching Past Lives, and this film hit me so hard I could barely move halfway through. While we’ll all take different things from it, I came away with these thoughts (Spoilers maybe? But not really anything that will affect the way you see the film):I just came back from watching Past Lives, and this film hit me so hard I could barely move halfway through. While we’ll all take different things from it, I came away with these thoughts (Spoilers maybe? But not really anything that will affect the way you see the film):
Na Young and Hae Sung are in some kind of long-distance relationship though they haven’t spoken in 12 years. After a long while of video calling from New York to Seoul, she says to him: “I immigrated twice (Korea to Canada to the US) to get to where I am, and yet I find myself looking up flights to Seoul. I need to commit to my life here.”
How much have I exchanged in return for the hope of something more than I had, somewhere else? I call myself flippantly a serial immigrant to bring an air of levity to my mosaic life history. The truth is, each migration, from China to Calgary, Calgary to Montreal, back to China, to Germany, has cost me dear pieces of myself, and a little more each time. “Some…
