Between two tears, you wonder how to interpret the end of the very beautiful “Past Lives”? Director Celine Song deciphers the scene on our microphone.
WARNING – The article below contains spoilers, since it returns to the end of “Past Lives – Nos vies d’avant”. So please move on if you haven’t seen Celine Song’s film.
Having passed through the Berlin and Deauville festivals, Past Lives is one of the most beautiful films of 2023. One of the most moving too. And it owes this in large part to its absolutely heartbreaking final scene, which concludes the long-term story between Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo).
Two childhood friends that life separated very early, before their love could be declared, when she left their native Korea to live in the United States. Their reunions, twelve and twenty-four years later, allow the feature film to address notions of past lives, missed opportunities and what could have been.
So many themes which find their culmination in the long silences between the two main characters, while Hae Sung waits for the taxi which will take him back to Korea. And maybe get him out of Nora’s life. But how can we interpret the last and unspoken exchanges between them? Answer with the director and screenwriter.
“People often talk about this film as a story of a missed date”Celine Song tells us at the Deauville American Cinema Festival. “Which is very true and I think about it a lot. But what interests me the most, especially at the end, is that she can say goodbye to the little girl she left behind years ago. is twenty-four years old. Past Lives is a film that tells the story of three farewells.”
Past Lives is a film about three farewells
“The first when they were children, which was a very bad goodbye because they were too young to do it properly. The second time, they hurt each other. It’s a very sad and heartbreaking breakup, a little weird too because it is done by video on Skype.”
“And there is the final farewell, which is the good farewell. The one which will lead us to the end of the film. And it is special that he must resolve this farewell to which they were not able to have the right twenty- four years ago. That’s why there’s a flashback during this scene.”
“And, if you look closely, this flashback takes place in the dark, during the night. So it’s not the same time of day, nor in the same lighting, as when they said goodbye as children. . It’s the same light as the present moment. It means that these two children have been waiting for their farewell on this street corner for twenty-four years. And that’s what matters most to me: that Nora can organize the funeral of that part of herself to which she was never able to say goodbye.”
ARP Where it all began
“The gift of Hae Sung’s coming to New York is to remind her that this little girl really existed and that she never had the right to a proper goodbye. But thanks to this gift, they can say goodbye properly. And Arthur [John Magaro] also receives something extraordinary, because he can see her cry and never had the chance. Hae Sung gave them this beautiful gift, but he also came because he wanted to close the door.”
“He needed to come and close the door on everything he thought might have happened. It’s really about closing a chapter. So when Nora cries on the way home, she’s doing it over this little girl. daughter she left behind. She doesn’t cry because she’s not going to end up with Hae Sung: she does what she didn’t do when she emigrated, because crying didn’t seem important to her then. “
Comments collected by Maximilien Pierrette in Deauville on September 2, 2023