过往人生

有一件事我们可以肯定，席琳宋镜头下的曼哈顿是我们从未见识过的-无处不在的警笛声除外。全片的色调都是朴素、低调、温和的，这太不美国了，尤其太不纽约了。无数场戏，无论是取景还是外景，纽约总是饱受恩宠，不过没有一个人想到站在哈得孙河公园的岸边，远处是波光粼粼的钢铁混凝土Norwegian Wood；没有一个人想到旋转木马是淡出视野的豪华、背景些许的音乐声，远处极具和谐美感的闪烁荧光，故人对坐五味杂陈。黄昏的味道、不列颠的雅致、城市现代主义的细腻调和让这部电影“赢在了起跑线上”（尽管这句话我深恶痛绝），曼哈顿本应该是臭汗和钞票的故乡，最不应该浪漫了，一种恬淡梦幻的浪漫，一种由青石台和丝毫不宣扬的衣着搭起的浪漫，一种江南水乡与阿尔卑斯山小镇缠绵的浪漫（虽然某种程度上而言宋把贫穷、拥挤的城市留在了首尔，但是三人从内至外的气质绝对不是中产阶级的，中产阶级总是梦想友好型和高昂的）这侧面反映出了宋惊人的表现力功底，哪怕只是画板上的调料，我只能把这样的浪漫称之为席琳宋式的浪漫。
我不大确定把自己的创作思路留在电影中以便观众理解是不是内心的不自信，反正影史上很多巨作都拖着一条可爱的小尾巴，不值得计较了。“Long Pauses”、“暂停一小段时间”，电影动人的秘诀之一就是一个个停顿的符号。我们对这种手法并不陌生，日本的“枕边镜头”是东方美学史上不朽的一页，每一处动态的定格都给予人无限的遐想空间和意蕴的美感，随着时间的变迁古典艺术没落了，日本真正的电影即使在动画数次新浪潮的支持下也垂垂老矣，没完没了暗无天际的物哀比中国的文青只多了分人文的底气，算是民族的天赋了。在这样的绝望时刻《过往人生》用及其成熟的方式复兴了东方古典美学电影，无论是对雨后地面和风动窗帘的凝视，还是对话中无处不在的沉默，席琳宋都在仔细揣摩着东方美学中最神秘、最动人的品质-“意境”，宋是韩裔、旅美，她的作品倾注了更多的西方人文主义精神（如此看来谭盾是她的前辈），我曾经疑惑过西方艺术的追求、东方社会人文的进步会不会摧毁东方电影，《过往人生》用实际行动嘲讽了这样想法的无知。电影很聪明地架起了韩国（东亚）和美国（西方）的桥梁，沟通的代际最自然地融合了两种美的理解，宋的镜头里并没有古衣古屋，这是人们通常的做法，它抽取了“意境”的精髓（韩国人眼中的世界是电影的基石），注入到了西方人文的浪漫主义中（电影大部分时间在曼哈顿），又有着典型的东方式怀旧情结 （“inyun”），自娜英下定决心要得诺贝尔文学奖，赴加离韩那一刻起这样美妙的交响乐就成为了定局。

“You only dream in Korean”“It's like there's this whole place inside of you where I can't go”，“乡愁”大概是中国人引以为傲的“专利”之一，实际上它是东方文化中最活跃的一部分，费孝通口中绑在土地上的人。《过往人生》最有意思的部分就是Nora、Hae Sung、Arthur三人的关系（电影的开头骄傲地预告了这一亮点），假如我们用距离感和亲近感两个要素衡量它的话，Nora人际关系的困境便是前和后的矛盾，乡愁与远方的矛盾。她是一个极富野心和活力的梦想家，她向往着美国的艺术气息，是向前看的，Arthur;她是一个梦呓着自己故乡的游子，她为故识典型的韩国人格而喜悦，她的乡愁与怀旧情感让她往后看，Hae Sung.“Past Lives”决定了天平的倾向，或者说Nora在走向未来的同时被过去“牵挂”，陷入一种怀旧的情结之中，所以Nora与Arthur的关系是大多数的亲近感和少数但是折磨人的距离感，Arthur对他妻子的乡愁感到不安，这看上去无关紧要，却是电影吸引力的神来之笔，未来是被过去牵挂的，这样的怀旧情节伴随着撕裂的痛苦，所以Arthur才担心妻子的渐行渐远。Nora和Hae Sung的关系则是大多数的距离感和极少数的亲近感，Nora是不屑于停留在过去的，两人12年的形同陌路证明了这一点，海盛是故乡的碑石，Nora眷恋的目光让他们一次次重逢，刹那间他们还是挥泪告别了，在分别的12年中海盛和一个中国姑娘相识了，他们关系的破碎某种程度上暗示了宋对东方式的乡土情怀、乡愁情结的态度，总是要割舍的，一种婉约的断袖气概，乡愁的怀旧情结和与之断袖的未来态度是电影微妙情愫的根源。

电影最耀眼的灵感火花是인연（因缘），这个词在韩语中通常用来表示缘分或命中注定的遇见。它包括了佛教中的因果关系和轮回的概念，认为所有的遇见都是有前因后果的。其实这个概念没有那么的吸引我，不过它的确是耀武扬威的，它是乡愁，这里说乡愁已经不大恰当了，电影里面说怀旧是最具忠于现实的，它是怀旧情节这种爷爷奶奶级别的感情中最年轻的部分，如果说我们对电影是否严肃进行质疑的话，因缘绝对是突破口，年轻人喜爱这种“我们在上辈子就见过面了”类似的浪漫情话，不过电影既然没有在上面花费太多功夫，因缘二字也被各种偶像言情小说玩透了，就权当它是席琳宋内心的美好愿望，不再多说了吧。

“Long Pauses”

“Long Pauses”

“Long Pauses”

‘Past Lives’ Review: Celine Song’s Understated Sundance Stunner Will Have Art-House Audiences Swooning
The Korean-born playwright demonstrates a way with words, but also with the deep wells of emotion that can flow between them, in this exceptional feature debut.


By Peter Debruge

Courtesy of A24

In “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost makes poetry of a simple choice. Most of us know the ending, but midway through, he imagines returning one day to that metaphorical fork in order to try the other path: “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.” In the beguiling study of untapped possibilities that is “Past Lives,” playwright Celine Song makes poetry of a similar situation, only this time, it’s a series of choices from her personal life — some she made herself, others decided for her by her parents — that set our minds to wondering about what might have been.

Song, who was born in South Korea, draws on her own history and culture in crafting this truly special feature debut, a treasure that is at once achingly autobiographical and disarmingly universal. Her script — so often understated, only to erupt with words when called for — introduces the notion of “In-Yun” to Western viewers, defining it as the universe’s way of reuniting souls who shared a connection in previous lives. It’s a lovely idea, served up so delicately, this low-key A24 offering could be the spiritual response to last year’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Where the Daniels’ movie took the bewildering multiverse approach, “Past Lives” is simple, slow and direct. Song’s characters are free to speculate, but there’s no going back. Or is there?

“Past Lives” takes place across three distinct periods, building the way “Moonlight” (another A24 film) did on memories minted and bonds forged in childhood. In the first segment, 12-year-old Na Young (Seung Ah Moon) moves from South Korea to Canada, abandoning her first crush in the process. She’s already decided she wants to be a writer when she grows up. Still, what can she possibly know of what her life might hold at that age? And what does she understand of what’s being left behind?

We haven’t quite gotten our bearings when the film skips forward a dozen years. The boy, Hae Sung, has grown up. Now played by Teo Yoo, he looks handsome if unhappy in uniform, doing his mandatory military service in Korea. Na Young, who now goes by Nora (Greta Lee), has immigrated again, this time to New York City, where her studies have set her on the course to becoming a playwright. By chance — or In-Yun? — she notices that Hae Sung has posted on her father’s Facebook page. Nora no longer identifies with the girl she was, but she remembers Hae Sung fondly and responds to his message, catching up over a series of video calls.

And then, almost as suddenly as those conversations began, she breaks it off. Twelve more years pass, and now Nora (still Lee) is married to a fellow writer, Arthur (John Magaro), whom she met at an artists’ retreat. Hae Sung has long since disappeared from her life when she learns that he’s planning to visit New York for a week. As if by some inevitable gravitational pull, “Past Lives” seems to have been moving toward this reunion from the beginning — and no wonder: The opening shows Nora seated between Arthur and Hae Sung at a bar.

It’s this tension that underlies the entire film, finally articulated in a conversation that grips us much as the walking-and-talking scenes did in Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise.” Ironically, “Past Lives” could be the inverse of that movie: It’s not about a spontaneous connection between strangers, but the power of tapping into a pre-established intimacy with someone you knew a lifetime ago, and with whom there seems to be unfinished business. Few are the films that offer such revelatory conversations between men and women.

That aforementioned bar scene is especially remarkable, in part because Song has already dedicated sufficient attention to all three characters. No one gets angry; no one throws a jealous punch. Nora’s husband has been studying Korean (in one of several unforgettable conversations, he explains that she relapses into her native tongue when talking in her sleep, and he wants to understand that hidden part of her). Hae Sung can manage a few words in English. But mostly, the two men of Nora’s life sit, separated by a language barrier and the woman they love. And there she is, stuck in the middle, suspended between what is and what could have been.

It might not have been the right decision to use the same actors, Lee and Yoo, in the middle and later segments of Nora’s life. There’s something beautiful but still-unformed about people in their early 20s, and the performers look too mature to convey it. That’s where Grizzly Bear collaborators Christopher Bear and Daniel Rosen’s music comes in handy: The score practically bubbles with potential during the scenes where Nora and Hae Sung are video chatting — a youthful sound, compared with later, when strings speak to what they might have missed out on.

Considering Song’s background as a playwright, it may surprise how much she trusts silence — or the absence of speech. Aided by DP Shabier Kirchner, she recognizes the visual potential of cinema, often privileging observation over listening, such that body language and surroundings (Seoul and New York play themselves) give viewers room to process. When the characters do talk, they express themselves beautifully, as in the amusingly meta scene where Arthur suggests that Nora use what’s happening in her work, then proceeds to analyze his role in the story.

For all the films that have been made about love triangles, Song has fashioned hers in the form of a circle, defying so many of the clichés in her quietly devastating way. Perhaps it’s because this ultra-personal project is about a feeling other than passion — one that evolves over the years, and which allows one life to contain multiple loves.