Dune: Part Two opens this week in theatres and Oppenheimer is on the verge of winning an Oscar tonight. The current discourse on big screen or epic films has revived discussions about such film’s epic aspects. We tend to reason that epic films are loose large constructions where a simple frame can showcase this reality with all its glory and this is true. Yet, America’s epics include more personal plots too that are steeped in maximalism and span the expanse of emotions within the limits of time and space.
Both the depth of emotion within the plot and the span of time within the film can support such a sweeping narrative without recourse to such elements as massive visuals. Such derived sensations with a minimalism can not only survive but even flourish as shown in this film Past Lives.
The Past Knocking at the Door
Yes, Past Lives is easily one of the best films of the year gone by for it is definitely in my top ten. Last year’s Past Lives is a directorial debut of playwright Celine Song who with the help of incredible Greta Lee tells another intricate story of romance, of belonging and separation, of ultimate and inner selves. Wonderful movies such as this have been well complemented by their streaming on Filmin and Movistar+ where those services are available now.
The narrative revolves around the characters, Nora and Hae Sung, who are in love as children in Korea. However, there are gaps of years, when they are apart because of Nora’s family, who has to move to Canada. Years go by and they find each other Dorado way in the virtual city. After a couple of Skypes the two frightened lovebirds finally embrace each other in New York eight years after their twographs. A whirlpool Dominic Fike amount shows that there talks permanently left hopeless images in lucid consciousness.
One Oscar nomination for best original screenplay for Song does not exhaust all the achievements of the movie. In this case, she manages to avoid the obstacles that occur frequently with playwrights, in particular of a romantic comedy, so nothing but cliches are left in the cinematic screenplay.
Past Lives: Overwhelming Emotions
Among the most interesting elements that Song portrays is the evolution of human relationships through the Internet and the repercussions it has in each character. She incorporates impressive timeline jumps and adds a new character into the boiling paradoxical love triangle. These are banal and trivial moments but to which a wonderful textbook like screenplay attaches many complex human emotions that are usually supressed by most films.
This is all enriched by Song’s diligent choices of images as the last touches. She places the camera in the right angles, whenever required, cuts in an array of ideal edts, and employs ellipses effectively, as if the unexpressed, is able to be emphatic. The texture of the film seems to contain a true entity of getting the film and digital formats right.
The dismal soundtracks of Grizzly Bear, on the other hand, gives the most fruitful climax in the storyline but in no single instant do they fuse overtheatrical gimmicks on the audience. Each of these components is treated very carefully and to a perfect denouement that remains in the mind long after the end of the movie.