A Korean man and woman are talking casually in a New York pub while another man listens half-absorbed to their side. All three have gone to the venue together, but the third, who is from the United States, seems out of place. What bond do they have with each other? a voiceover asks. What follows is the telling of the most romantic and touching story that audiences will be able to see on the big screen this year. A beautiful, sensitive and emotional film about love, memories of the past and the mysteries of a capricious destiny that has dazzled in its passage through the Sundance and Berlin festivals. It's called Vidas pasadas, it's up for three Gotham awards for independent cinema and could ring the bell at the Oscars – it's not for nothing that it's produced and distributed by the successful A24, which won seven golden statuettes for Todo a la vez en todas partes –, and marks the extraordinary directorial debut of playwright Celine Song.
In fact, the Korean-Canadian has taken some episodes from her own experience to tell us about deep feelings, those that mark the tender friendship of Nora Lee and Hae Sung in Korea until the girl emigrates at the age of 12 with her parents to Canada and loses contact with his friend. At 24, that restless young woman who dreamed of being a great writer has moved to New York and while talking on the phone with her mother, she remembers that boy who stole her heart in her childhood. She looks him up on Facebook and it turns out that he had tried to locate her before without success. They are written, they stay for Zoom and the magic speaks for itself.
But everyone has work projects to attend to and it is not easy to stay in person. And so time passes, until one day they meet again in New York, discussing what could have been and what wasn't. "On one occasion I was in a bar in New York sitting between my childhood friend who was visiting me from Korea and my husband and this was the trigger for the project", explains the filmmaker in conversation with this newspaper. “I felt that even though what was happening was not dramatic, it was something epic. I felt like I was traveling through time and space. That she was acting as a mediator between two countries and two cultures".
Song sets the film up with two 12-year time jumps to the final reunion between Nora and Hae Sung. "I was interested in reflecting that sometimes 12 years fly by and two minutes become eternal". Throughout this period that passes, the protagonists meet other people, but a special chemistry between them remains in evidence that the passing of the years has not been able to erase.
What's more, the film refers to the Korean word Inyeon, which means "providence or destiny" and describes the ties that unite two people throughout their past lives. This is what Nora tells her husband Arthur the first time they meet. He also has a special relationship with him and a lot of trust, so much so that he supports the fact that his wife sees his Korean friend when he comes to visit the city. “It would be easy to see this movie as a love triangle and the husband was a jerk, but the reality is that it's about three people who treat each other like adults. Both Hae Sung and Arthur know a different Nora, and each wants to know what the other knows about her and that is very related to what love is and how we experience it,” he says of the portrayal of masculinity not at all toxic "which I like, that of two men who renounce their interests and who think about the needs of the other. They both understand that it is a difficult time for them, but they are aware of what Nora is going through and they support her."
For Song it was important that the story "be as real as possible" and he admits that he felt "nerves" at the premiere at Sundance. "I didn't know how the world would perceive her, but I've seen that people identify with her." And the key is that "we are all also that 12-year-old boy or girl who coexists with our adulthood and feels so real". The filmmaker alludes to the magnificent work of Greta Lee and Yoo Teo, as well as the performance of the child actors. And, of course, to the delicate composition of John Magaro as Arthur. "There was a very intimate work with the actors. They had to have faith and let the story be conveyed by their faces, their gestures and looks". Regarding Nora's difficulty in choosing between two magnificent men, she says that "it seems that love should only be described with one color, but that's not the case. There are many ways to live it and the important thing is its depth".
