Past Lives

Celine Song’s first feature begins from a night she lived. In a New York bar she sat between her husband and the childhood sweetheart visiting from Korea, translating and mediating at once, and the film opens on that seating arrangement. She then built the distance into the shoot. John Magaro and Teo Yoo were kept apart until their characters meet on camera, even around hair and makeup. Rehearsals ran separately with Greta Lee, and after each one Song had Lee describe the other man, so each knew his opposite only by report. It was shot on 35 mm, which meant producers trusting film to a first time director, and Song usually knew by the second or third take. The apartments for Nora and Hae Sung’s video calls were built side by side at Greenpoint Studios in Brooklyn and shot at the same time, so the distance was faked in the set itself. At the 96th Academy Awards it was nominated for best picture and for original screenplay, and won neither. A good fit if you want the triangle held rather than fought, the husband kept in frame and silent while the other two talk past him. Not for you if you are waiting for someone to be chosen, because the film refuses that call.