The Power of What’s Left Unsaid: A Dialogue Analysis of "Past Lives"

In Past Lives (2023), director Celine Song crafts a tender yet piercing exploration of love, nostalgia, and the roads not traveled. The film centers on Nora and Hae Sung, childhood friends separated by Nora’s family’s emigration from Korea to Canada, who reconnect as adults after years apart. Their story unfolds against the backdrop of In-Yun, a Korean concept suggesting that connections from past lives ripple into the present. While the premise is evocative, it is the film’s dialogues—and, more strikingly, its silences—that give Past Lives its emotional press. This essay analyzes how Celine Song uses dialogue and the absence of words to deepen character development, amplify thematic resonance, and invite audiences into the unspoken spaces of human connection.

The Role of Dialogue in Character Development

The dialogues in Past Lives are deceptively simple, yet they serve as a powerful lens into the characters’ souls. Take the video calls between Nora and Hae Sung: these conversations, conducted across continents, are marked by a quiet intimacy that bridges their physical and temporal distance. This exchanges not only highlights their shared past but also subtly reveals how their current lives—Nora’s as an ambitious playwright in New York, Hae Sung’s as an engineer in Seoul—have diverged. Yet, through these nostalgic reflections, their bond remains palpable, underscoring the film’s central tension: the pull of a past connection against the reality of present lives.

Nora’s exchanges with her husband, Arthur, further highlight this dynamic. Where her talks with Hae Sung are steeped in memory, her conversations with Arthur are grounded in the everyday—practical, affectionate, yet lacking the same depth of history. In one scene, as they prepare for bed, Arthur reminds her, “Hey, don’t forget we need to pick up some milk on the way home tomorrow.” Nora nods, “Oh, right. And maybe some eggs too.” This mundane dialogue contrasts sharply with her emotionally charged conversations with Hae Sung, emphasizing how her relationship with Arthur, while loving, is rooted in the present rather than the past. Through these contrasting dialogues, Song illuminates Nora’s dual identity as both a Korean immigrant and a New Yorker, showing how language shapes her relationships and sense of self.

The Use of Silence and Subtext

If dialogue reveals the characters’ surface emotions, silence uncovers what lies beneath. Song wields silence as a storytelling tool with surgical precision, particularly in scenes of reunion. When Nora and Hae Sung meet in person after years apart, their initial interaction is marked by a long, wordless pause as they stand in front of each other, eyes locked, smiles tentative yet warm. In this moment, no words are needed; the silence brims with the weight of their shared history and the unspoken “what ifs” that haunt them. A simple glance and a held breath convey more than any dialogue could, allowing viewers to feel the depth of their connection without explicit declaration.

Cultural Nuances in Dialogues

The film’s dialogues are enriched by the cultural interplay between Nora and Hae Sung’s Korean heritage and their divergent lives. Their shared language creates a private sphere, most notably in the bar scene with Arthur present. As Nora and Hae Sung slip into Korean, their conversation becomes more intimate. This reminiscence, spoken in their native tongue, is a barrier Arthur cannot cross, highlighting the exclusivity of their bond.

The concept of In-Yun also threads through their conversations, particularly in Hae Sung’s musings. In one poignant moment, he says, “You know, in Korean culture, we believe in In-Yun—that our connection might be from a past life.” Nora, ever the pragmatist, smiles but doesn’t fully engage, her silence speaking to her internal conflict between embracing this cultural belief and her Westernized skepticism. These cultural nuances elevate the dialogues, transforming them into a meditation on how heritage and language shape our connections.

The Bar Scene

The bar scene, where Nora, Hae Sung, and Arthur share a table, is a masterclass in dialogue and subtext. On the surface, the conversation is polite—small talk about New York, a few laughs—but beneath it simmers a quiet storm of emotion. When Nora and Hae Sung switch to Korean, their words take on a confessional tone. Hae Sung admits, “Seeing you again and being here makes me have a lot of weird thoughts. What If I'd come to New York 12 years ago?, What if you had never left Seoul?”...and we would just grew up together? Would I still have looked for you? Would we have dated? Broken up? Gotten married? Would we have had kids together, thoughts like that." Meanwhile, Arthur, sensing the shift but unable to understand, interjects His outsider status is palpable, underscored by the language barrier and the unspoken history between Nora and Hae Sung.

The scene’s brilliance lies in its restraint. The dialogue never erupts into confrontation; instead, the tension builds through what’s unsaid—Nora’s guilt at revisiting her past, Hae Sung’s longing for what might have been, Arthur’s insecurity as the third wheel. Moments of silence punctuate the conversation, with glances and hesitant smiles conveying more than words. Song lets these emotions linger in the spaces between words, making the scene a microcosm of the film’s exploration of love’s complexities.

Past Lives is a film that thrives on subtlety, and its dialogues—paired with its silences—are the heartbeat of its narrative. Through carefully crafted conversations, Song reveals the layers of her characters, while her use of silence amplifies the emotions too vast for words. The cultural resonance of the Korean language and the concept of In-Yun deepen this tapestry, creating a story that feels both specific and universal. By leaving so much unsaid, Past Lives becomes a mirror for its audience, reflecting our own stories of love, regret, and the paths we leave behind. In a medium often defined by noise, Song’s quiet approach proves that the most enduring tales are those that whisper rather than shout.

"You dream in a language I can't understand. It's like there is this whole place inside of you, where I can't go"