“Past Lives” and the Significance of Silence

Past Lives communicates more in its quiet moments than entire films do in the whole of their noisy runtimes.

It is understandable that in a world where content is consumed like food and the entire population is starved, that one would forget restraint replaced by excess. The world almost feels empty without a movie playing distantly in the living room, a Youtube video replacing one’s thoughts, or a song in the background of any and all activity. Silence is endangered, with very few deliberate explorers daring the adventure into uncharted territory to engage with its beauty. Off the grid, in an oxymoronic jungle dense with nothing, is where we find ourselves finally attuned with silence. One does not recognize its allure after hours upon days upon weeks of stimuli sent straight to the nervous system, but in reality, all of life’s greatest feelings are revealed in this liminal space. Where one can speak to themselves, or to another, noiselessly. Where thoughts, hidden passions and dormant memories make themselves known. Where the unsaid is spoken aloud…all without words. This is the power of silence. To settle in an effort to expose. It is a space where, ironically, the most is said, and all is heard. Very few people have the option to experience this magic, and like so many other craveable sensations, we (ironically) turn to film for the vicarious experience. Shockingly, the stimulating medium that engages every sense is not one necessarily known for its quiet. But when willing to indulge, when accepting what so many find terrifying, when risking boredom for artistic effect, film is a medium that captures silence, and its impactful revelatory power, better than most. 

Enter Past Lives, alerting the audience of its presence through subtlety unlike most films that are too afraid to linger in the liminal. From its opening moments, silence plays a prominent role. We open on a voyeuristic gaze, one of the only sounds heard being two off screen voices; the source of the sound isn’t important. All that matters is the way in which the noise cuts through the hollow silence. With bar ambience muted, the voices poke and prod at the camera’s subjects, our main characters Nora and Hae-Sun, and to the side, Nora’s partner, Arthur. Their voices are amplified due to the relative quietness of a scene we expect to be layered with glasses clinking, a smooth jazz backing track, and friendly chatter. Because it’s a film, one could even expect creative sound effects. Whooshes, maybe some extra foley, at the very least some non-diegetic music. But no, Past Lives is nothing if not restrained and confident, much like Nora, who deftly stares into the camera without saying a word. Eyes towards the audience, the voices question who she is, what’s her identity…who is Nora? The answer is heard in the silent void. 

The most powerful example of which comes at the film’s halfway mark. After a childhood relationship crushed by Nora immigrating to America, months of painfully real love expressed over the fake replication of reality that is a computer screen, and twelve years of longing, the two reunite in New York City. Hae-Sun is in a relationship. Nora is married. She has a successful career. Hae-Sun does too. Nora lives in the west. Crowded, busy, deep within the metropolis of metropolis’; NYC never fails to remind its population of its overwhelming presence. Hae-Sun, in the east, lives in an undisclosed location in South Korea, but based on his business attire, a city dwelling can also be assumed. And here, after cumulative years of life lived, with infinite experiences to divulge, surrounded by the noise of their environments and daily goings ons, the permutations of fitting words is unfathomably large. And yet…they don’t say a word. Instead, the camera lingers, risking the audience’s boredom, tracking the movement of the could be lover’s unbreakable gaze. The two are not in frame at the same time, rather, the camera drifts between their interlocked eyes, and here all that needs to be said but isn’t is heard loud and clear. The resulting emotion was so overwhelming, it was the first point in the movie I was moved to tears. The others also came at moments of beautiful, all revealing silence. Based on the character’s experiences, the feelings we’ve seen them encounter, the thoughts we’ve heard them express in their most isolated moments, the audience does not need to be told what they are thinking at this moment. In an instant, subtext gracefully becomes text without making itself overt to the audience. The movie does not declare these two are in love. It’s not that simple, their connection is one beyond romance, and words could never capture the complexity these reunited souls feel for one another. Instead, the silence speaks for them, and it makes undefinable emotion crystal clear. Nora and Hae-Sun tell their deepest truths in those rare, blissfully quiet moments, and the audience understands it better than if it was spoken, feel it more intensely precisely because words aren’t just rendered mute, but completely purposeless when delving into sensations like these.. Nora and Hae-Sun are connected through quiet, and the film is all the more effective for it. 

Nora returns home and confirms both her and Patrick’s fear: Hae-Sun came to New York for her. But he never said this, instead, it was tucked in his gaze. Hidden from vocality, but impossible to hide in those eyes, their connection is so concrete that they can understand each other’s inner workings without the use of words. It’s a depiction of love and deep understanding that is only achieved through subtle set up and effortless payoff in the form of audial nothing, and demonstrates both the power behind silence as a tool in cinema, and the writing skill demonstrated in a movie this touching. Silence on its own is not an effective storytelling tool in a vacuum. Silent films aren’t more or less effective as stories due to their inability to reverberate sound waves. Instead, silence is rendered powerful only in relation to its surrounding noise. Underpinning a climactic moment of violence with impossible deafness amplifies the brutality with juxtaposition, Oppenheimer demonstrated this recently in one of the most impactful scenes I’ve ever experienced. Similarly, Past Lives’ emotional reveals are only expressed without noise because it was effectively set up to do so. The opening scene demonstrates as such. Without context, Nora, Hae-Sun and Patrick are just a group of friends. Patrick is happy. Wait, no, he just slammed his drink, he needs to feel something. Nora is flirting with Hae-Sun. Actually, they’re siblings. But just look at that smile! That’s one of pure admiration, surely. The omnipotent voices reflect the inherent weakness of a silent moment Past Lives refuses, instead crafting scenes where information and significance are rendered perfectly clear rather than confusing by the all consuming quiet. The past hour was not just another love story, but an intricate setup that is paid off with the two’s shared, heartfelt stares. The expertise comes from the film’s subtlety. It wasn’t until this midpoint scene that I felt Past Lives was having an effect on me. I enjoyed the first half to be sure, but from all I’ve heard about the film I expected at least a tear by the forty five minute mark. Instead, the film’s patented patience wisely guided me to a moment made powerful by waiting and listening, both to the sound of set up and the consequentially emotional silence.

The second bout of tears came at the film’s, and relationship’s, ending, one that closes just as it opened. After a warm goodbye between Patrick and Hae-Sun, underpinned by courteous social requirements that doesn’t negate their new bond, Nora walks Hae-Sun to his uber. The modern phenomenon that is ordering a car straight from your hand reminds the audience that this is the same reality they live in, and thus, a reminder that silence is fleeting. This makes the two’s slow, reluctant walk that much more powerful, as not a word is exchanged between two characters with entire life's worth of history to be recounted, conversations to be had, and silence to be broken. Instead, captured in a tracking wide shot that makes the character’s connective gaze now intact for the audience to see, Nora and Hae-Sun silently express their sorrow in a way words would impede upon. Emotions are lost in translation when spoken aloud. They remain complete when expressed through silence. And it is only when their bond is broken does the sound return in the form of Nora’s tears. The city once again bellows with its subway underfoot, planes in the sky, and commuters at eye level. But none of them look like Hae-Sun. None of them listen like Nora. None but Patrick, who patiently waits at their apartment’s entrance, silently embracing his broken lover. 

Minutes go by in Past Lives where silence, and by extension, emotion dominates. The film performs a storytelling impossibility: completely clear communication without vocals. Most impressive, Past Lives manages to convey this powerful emotion more effectively than movies with their hearts on their sleeves because of its masterful use of the void, and with enough subtlety that one is not aware of the film’s entrancing effect until it wants them to be. In this way, Past Lives demonstrates how words can be a weakness and proves the power in the storytelling rule as old as silence itself: Show, don’t tell.