Released this week, the delicate drama “Past Lives – Nos vies d’avant” was very well received by the French press.
Presented and awarded at numerous prestigious festivals, Past Lives – Nos vies d’avant is the first film by American Celine Song. Released this week in our cinemas, this moving nugget about love and uprooting was very well received by the French press, with an average of 4/5 (on AlloCiné, for 29 media and as of December 15) .
WHAT IS IT ABOUT ?
At 12 years old, Nora and Hae Sung are childhood friends, platonic lovers. Circumstances separate them. At 20, chance reconnects them, for a time. At 30, they find themselves, adults, confronted with what they could have been, and with what they could become.
WHAT THE PRESS THINKS:
According to GQ:
“With “Past Lives – Nos vies d’avant”, Celine Song signs a first film of incredible delicacy on love and uprooting.” (Adam Sanchez) 5/5
According to L’Obs:
“In pastel images, a very pretty search for lost time, as moving as a dried flower in an old book.” (François Forestier) 4/5
According to La Croix:
“American playwright Celine Song has created a heartbreakingly beautiful first film, inspired by her own story.” (Corinne Renou-Nativel) 4/5
According to Ecran Large:
“With Past Lives, Celine Song signs much more than a first feature film about youthful loves and the difficulty of being an immigrant. The filmmaker delivers a fair and disarming work on the importance of our history and the acceptance of time passes to move forward.” (Adrien Roche) 4/5
This is one of the most moving films of 2023: Past Lives, a story of thwarted love to see in the cinema
According to Marianne:
“This impressionistic and whispered fiction deserves not to go unnoticed in the deafening tumult of end-of-year releases.” (Olivier De Bruyn) 4/5
According to Defector:
“The most beautiful thing is the mixture of precision, restraint and delicacy in the gestures of a filmmaker who is already extremely assertive for a first film.” (Serge Kagansky) 4/5
According to Le Monde:
“A simple story, as old as time, that Past Lives revisits with the precision of a metronome, the delicacy of a master watchmaker.” (V. Cau.) 4/5
According to Première:
“Striped of all artifice, this drama sublimated by an intimate staging fascinates with its use of emptiness, that of words that have not been spoken, feelings that have not been experienced. Regret is everywhere, the omnipresent melancholy.” (Lucie Chiquer) 3/5