Past Lives | Title Explanation

In this section of our Colossus Movie Guide for Past Lives, we delve into the significance of the film’s title.

Cast

• Nora – Greta Lee
• young Nora – Seung Ah Moon
• Hae Sung – Teo Yoo
• young Hae Sung – Seung Min Yim
• Arthur – John Magaro
• Nora’s mom – Ji Hye Yoon
• Written by – Celine Song
• Directed by – Celine Song

Why is the movie called Past Lives?

The title Past Lives has multiple meanings. 

There’s the broader poetic conceit of referring to the “what ifs” that we accumulate over the course of a lifetime. It becomes another way of saying “In another life, I may have married my high school sweetheart and become a pilot. Instead, I’m a professor and married to someone else in the department. One isn’t better than the other. They’re just…very different.” We see how this plays out with the tension between Nora and Hae Sung, especially in the present day. We know there’s a version of their lives where Nora stays in Korea and the two grow up together, date, get married, then build a life together. There’s another version where they reconnect after college, date, get married, then build a life together. But we’re at the point where those are merely past lives that are impossible now. 

Beyond that, the idea of past lives is something the film makes quite explicit through the stories relating to In-Yun. In-Yun is a concept about fate and the connection two people must have developed across past lives. So if you bump into a stranger on the street, you know In-Yun exists between you. Nora and Hae Sung laugh about the potential ways they may have developed their strong connection. He may have been a king and she the consort. She may have been a bird, he a branch. Chungking Express explores a related idea about fleeting contact between strangers. 

Ultimately, Past Lives is a misnomer because, as far as anyone can prove, we only get to live one life. And it’s devastating because we’re full of potential. There are so many people we could have been. But we only end up as who we are. At a certain point, we have to come to terms with letting go of what could have been and embracing totally what is. 

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