The intellectual problem of 'Past Lives'
A fine movie with a tragic flaw
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Now on with today’s post.
It’s always a slight risk to write a piece about a work of art, as many of you may not seen it. Still, given that it’s probably the most hyped film of the year, and indeed an excellent piece of cinema, it feels allowable to share a few thoughts on ‘Past Lives’.
You have seen it? Excellent. Wasn’t it lovely? The most delicate and sensitive rendering of two schoolfriends who across time and place, from Seoul to New York and from childhood to adulthood, attempt to fathom the nature of their connection. The tale of their parting as children, reconnecting in the early days of Facebook and then finally meeting IRL before years later saying farewell forever; Celine Song’s film has been acclaimed as the best debut in decades. It also introduced us to the concept of in-yun, a Korean Buddhist concept for the fate of two souls to meet, which may be created by the accumulated encounters of their many past lives.
‘I liked this film’ though is not the most promising basis for a Substack post, and in my view the film has a significant intellectual flaw. I should say straight off the bat that I think all films have flaws of one kind or another; out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight artwork was ever made.
Yet the flaw of ‘Past Lives’ is interesting, as in some ways it’s not a flaw at all, or at least not a flaw which is not the fault or design of the filmmaker alone, but a result of the conjunction of ideas her film exploits and as ever with a shortcoming, wound up with the film’s strengths.
Good art, to a certain extent, is always to a degree subject to the paradox of tortoise and the hare, with the final approach to making a great work breaking into smaller and smaller measurements until the slightest shortcoming – a single poor line of dialogue, an odd musical cue – seems impossibly large.
Tough game, art!
The flaw I found in ‘Past Lives’ is intimately connected to the film’s ending so, if you don’t want that spoiling, go read something else.