(may contain spoilers)
Past Lives
Douban rating: 7.7
Director: Celine Song
Starring: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro
Douban Comments: “One interesting thing about culture is that the American husband feels like his Korean-American wife is closer to Korean men. At the same time, the childhood friend in Korea feels that the girl he liked when they were young is now closer to her American husband after she moved away. But in reality, there’s always a bit of a gap between these three groups, and they can never fully understand each other. What’s touching, though, is that even with this gap, love is still love, and they will still wish the best for the person they love.
Another point is that everyone probably has a childhood friend they liked when they were young, but that 12-year-old version of themselves is gone. However, the love they felt was real.”
“It seems like the male lead is more of a symbol of the female lead’s East Asian identity. The female lead has immigrated twice, so it’s impossible for her to abandon everything and return to her homeland – she even rushed into marriage early just for a green card. But her original culture is always there, and when she does encounter it again, she feels comfortable. The male lead really embodies the East Asian mentality. We East Asians can sit on a crowded subway without our hands touching by even 0.001 millimeters, gaze deeply into each other’s eyes for 108 minutes before parting, and hold on to memories of our first love for over 20 years. We smile bitterly when talking about unpaid overtime, pointing to our heads and saying, ‘I’m mentally strong’. There’s a certain quiet suffering in being East Asian.”
“This movie is an expected A24-style film that feels a bit boring for the first two-thirds, but it ultimately hits on some deep emotional pain. I see Hae Sung not as a specific person, but as a symbol of the pull of one’s homeland. In the journey of immigration, the homeland is like a childhood love that provides comfort during loneliness, repeatedly calling you to return, imagining a possibility of rebuilding a closer relationship, and suggesting that your connection is more genuine and profound. Because of this, immigrants must repeatedly say goodbye to their homeland throughout their lives, and each goodbye brings pain.”
“The first half of the movie feels a bit cliché until the female lead reconnects with the male lead after 12 years. She knows they won’t give up their lives for each other, and in a breakup video, she says, ‘I immigrated to New York twice to live my life, not to think about how to get on a flight back to Seoul’. That really moved me.
Twelve years later, she hasn’t achieved the Nobel Prize she dreamed of as a 12-year-old, nor the Pulitzer Prize she aimed for at 24. Instead, she married an American writer and even rushed into marriage for a green card. Ultimately, fate makes us very ordinary people. Years later, I wonder if we might regret not being together. The movie provides an answer: ‘I love you’ means loving that ambitious, brave part of you who would leave everything behind. The time we missed can’t be reclaimed, and there’s no future to look forward to. So, when we meet again in a foreign land after 24 years, we can’t help but dream about our past connection and entanglements.
The film is very sincere, capturing that stubbornness and determination, and it made me cry.”
Anatomy of a Fall
Douban rating: 8.7
Director: Justine Triet
Starring: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado-Graner
Douban Comments: “I agree that in any relationship, neither party should lose themselves, nor should one place the responsibility solely on the other. The most important thing is to avoid making the decision to sacrifice yourself from the very beginning. If we were to reverse the roles of the husband and wife in the film, we’d realize that the husband’s situation is actually the predicament many women face in real life. However, society has long become accustomed to this invisible oppression of women. When the oppressed party is a man, and he commits suicide as a result, everyone’s first reaction (including the audience’s) is: ’Impossible‘.”
“The film has excellent visual and sound techniques. It shows a gender role reversal compared to most families, which is a clever choice. Making the female lead bisexual also feels like a creative touch. At the celebration, when the female lead held the lawyer’s face, I was really clenching my fists, praying that she wouldn’t kiss him; because if she did, everything would fall apart. Thankfully, I could trust the director not to make such a silly mistake. When the female lead called her son, she asked if she could come home in a questioning tone rather than just telling him. At this point, I wonder which East Asian daughter wouldn’t quietly feel emotional – I won’t say more.”
“The truly terrifying part is that the male lead had already decided to commit suicide and, after a failed attempt, meticulously recorded their final explosive marital argument under the guise of collecting material for his work. How much hidden pain, filth, and infidelity can a marriage endure? Even the car accident involving their son when he was four wasn’t enough to drive him to suicide. The deeper cause lies in his low self-esteem, insecurity, and the psychological shadow of not being recognized – like a never-ending nightmare of being trapped in a dark, damp tunnel from which there is no escape.
What’s most disturbing is why he chose to harm himself and frame his spouse. This story reveals the cruelest aspect of marriage: how can jealousy be avoided in such an intimate relationship?”
“This is probably the best Palme d’Or winner in at least a decade. The film feels like it’s filled with a kind of magnetic pull, encompassing everything. I thought that was it, but then around the 80-minute mark, things suddenly took a sharp turn. A major argument scene, perhaps the best I’ve ever seen, brought out all the tension that had been quietly building. From there, the courtroom scenes became a whirlwind, like a storm tearing everything apart. The dialogue’s rhythm became a weapon, creating a sense of pressure and suffocation under tight control.
It felt like a romanticized Edward Yang, blending the poetic with realism. Even though the film is filled with soft lighting and shallow focus, clearly romanticizing life’s scenes (even the powerful argument is shot this way), it’s actually a cold, realistic examination of life – a perfect representation of the word ‘anatomy’. Most directors would try to strip away emotions when using the ‘scalpel approach’, but Triet fills the story with deep emotion and passion. Maybe that’s the unique touch of a female director.
A year later, I rewatched it and liked it even more. I was actually moved to tears, touched by the overwhelming emotions.”
The Holdovers
Douban rating: 7.8
Director: Alexander Payne
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Dominic Sessa
Douban Comments: “It’s like watching a movie you’ve seen countless times, yet you’re still inevitably moved at the end by a brief moment. If there has to be a “Green Book” every awards season, then I would prefer it to be like this – openly acknowledging its old-fashioned style, but meticulously crafting the details of its characters. From the small cracks opened up by the clash of dialogue, a kind of sincerity flows out, one that makes you willingly ‘fall into the cliché’.”
“‘To truly understand the present or oneself, one must start with history. History is not just the study of the past; it’s also an interpretation of the present.’ Upon hearing this, Angus was clearly moved and responded: ‘If you tried to introduce topics from a sexual perspective in class, we’d understand more easily, and fewer people would hate you’. In other words, Paul’s teaching method had issues. But when you think about it, isn’t Paul’s problem also the same issue with director Payne and this film? If you hadn’t stretched out this student-teacher redemption story (which reminds one of The Browning Version) for so long, taking over 90 minutes before getting to that interesting scene and dialogue in the ancient museum, we might have been willing to give it another half or full star, maybe even a four-star rating.”
“The strong sense of nostalgia and simple emotional touch – it’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a sincere, heartfelt, and full-of-humanity American film on the big screen. The film’s retro visuals perfectly complement its 1970s story, depicting the journey of a few lonely souls going from strangers to finding warmth in each other, and ultimately helping each other grow. There’s no grand sacrifice, nor intense romance, but the film creates an effect like a gentle, hidden current of warmth, slowly flowing through the audience’s hearts, turning the snowy winter in the movie into a spring-like warmth. Paul Giamatti deserves to win Best Actor for this, please!”
