I recently saw the movie “Past Lives” on a plane. What an incredibly beautiful film. It made me think about past loves that I have, and how different my life could have turned out.
It follows a multi-decade story of a woman who leaves Korea and her childhood sweetheart, only to be reunited and separated with him a couple more times. The woman gets married to an American man, but the story chronicles this feeling of ‘what if’ with her childhood sweetheart.
It’s a feeling I think we’re all familiar with. Wondering how different our lives could be. Especially when it comes to love it can be quite powerful and painful. I try to describe it as feelings of nostalgia dripping with longing.
Spoiler (sorry): At the end, the woman’s current partner, who is not her past love, comforted her as she cried about the pain of longing and wondering ‘what if’ she had instead gone with her childhood sweetheart.
What’s beautiful about this moment is that the current partner, Arthur, loves her and supports her in her pain and longing. How incredibly mature. It’s what we do as adults – we choose and decide on our partnerships and companions. It isn’t something necessarily dictated by circumstance and hormones.
The loves we had when we were young were so hormone-heavy and intense. Of course when we miss them and think about them it digs deep into our soul. We felt alive. Romantic. Raw.
This movie was incredible because it dug those feelings up for me. It painted a perfect picture of what those feelings are like.
And I was just left in awe of the story teller and filmmaker’s art – how they can tell a story so perfectly that it evokes such a nuanced feeling from me. That’s what art in all forms is all about. The feelings it evokes. Again I’m just in awe how talented someone can be to do that to some stranger watching their art.
The theme of the movie is about In-Yun. A concept in Korea, akin to divine providence that connects people across multiple lives, usually related to love. I’ve been fortunate to benefit from In-Yun. And my mind explodes thinking about how many wonderful people and experiences I’m connected to that have brought me exactly here to this little cafe somewhere, writing this.