You dream in a language that I can't understand

Completing my trip up Empire's top 20 films of 2023

#1 :  Past Lives

If you wanted to be reductive, Past Lives is essentially just a love triangle movie. But there’s so much more to it: Celine Song’s extraordinarily powerful film finds its impact in its understatement. This is a drama in which not much happens, in which people simply talk and catch up and occasionally exchange meaningful looks, in which there is no dramatic bust-up or fights or explosions. But with gorgeous performances from the three leads, sumptuous yet minimalistic cinematography from Shabier Kirchner, a swooning score from Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen, and an astonishingly confident steady hand from debut writer-director Song, Past Lives leaves an impact as deep as an asteroid crater: a quiet film that rings loudly in your ears, long after the moving finale.

I was surprised to see this at #1 because I'd never heard of it - and doubly surprised because The Guardian had it at #1 as well. So I'm hoping to like it, but I'm getting strong Before Sunrise vibes from the descriptions so I'm a little concerned it's going to look gorgeous, but absolutely nothing is going to happen.

Na Young and Hae Sung are schoolmates in South Korea and obviously keen on each other, but any possible relationship between them is somewhat rudely interrupted when Na emigrates to Canada, anglicising her name to Nora in the process. And then, 24 years later, they meet up again in New York and reflect on their, wait for it, past lives.

We cover various snippets from their lives - none of the scenes are too long but you really get a feel for their paths as we dip in and out of their lives to give us some hint as to what's been going on. And on her path, Nora gets married so there are three of them as they meet up for food and drinks - Nora (Greta Lee), Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) and Arthur (John Magaro). And that's all I'm going to tell you - although I am going to say I don't agree with Empire's description of this as a love triangle movie.

It definitely has Before Sunrise vibes, but it includes more silence (than I remembered, anyway) which allowed me to more fully connect with their emotions. I'd also say they're all nicer people than Jesse and Celine, which certainly helped me enjoy the film more because I actually cared about them - they are somewhat serious people though, so they're hard to love.

The film is both written and directed by Celine Song and she's done a great job on both fronts - giving both the characters and their locations enough time for you to get to know them well without being overly fussy or detailed. There's some lovely camerawork throughout with some gorgeous shots - it's also a film that does some lovely things with eye contact which must have taken quite some direction (or just very good acting).

All three main characters give very natural performances - they really portray the nerves and uncertainty of meeting up after such a long time/for the first time and not knowing what it's going to be like. They're all very experienced actors - I'd not seen Greta Lee in anything before, but Mrs Reed recognised her from The Morning Show, Teo Woo had a small part in Decision To Leave and John Magaro was one of the leads in First Cow and also appeared in Carol.

I enjoyed this and thought this was really well done, but I don't think I'd make it my film of the year - the story is a little too slight (although it's fair to say the film does a lot with it). I would say that if you like the Before films (which I don't) and you've not seen this then I think you'd probably like it - it's available to stream on MUBI or to rent in all the usual places.

And with that, we've completed another list - and not a bad list it was too!

#2 - Just too long