The Bechdel Cast - Past Lives with Nancy Wang Yuen

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

On this episode, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Nancy Wang Yuen explore their in-yun and chat about Past Lives. Check out Nancy at nancywyuen.com and grab her book, Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that?

That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller

from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos,

host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows, that we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands

or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast. Start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Hey, Jamie. Hey, Caitlin. How many layers of Inyan do you think we have between us? What's a polite answer? I think it's 8,000 or more. Ooh, okay, let's go for it. Yes, we are connected in unprecedented ways.

We're basically married, so. We are spiritually married. It's true. That is actually, I do think that that is true. I think so, yeah. That is true. There is nothing stronger than the bond between two podcasters.

We know so much about each other. It's true. It's true. Welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Durante, and this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point to initiate much larger conversations. But what is the Bechdel test, Jamie? Well, it is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, often called the Bechdel-Wallace test, because it was co-created with her friend Liz Wallace.

There's a lot of different versions of this test. It was originally just made as a one-off kind of gag in her wonderful comics collection, Dykes to Watch Out For. And it's sort of evolved over the years. The version of the test that we use require that two characters of a marginalized gender with names speak to each other about something other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue. And they should be meaningful lines of dialogue. No, how would you like your burger cooked type of random interaction. We don't let movies get away with a barely pass. And also we kind of barely talk about it. Right.

Because it's just a jumping off point for discussion. There's so many things to talk about with movies. But for a long time and still often, this bare minimum never takes place. It is true. And there is a lot to talk about in today's movie, which is Past Lives that came out last year. I feel like every single person who listened to this show requested this movie. Yeah. It's been out for, I think it's been out for over a year now. But it felt like throughout last year, as it became more available in theaters, more available on streaming, that people were discovering it. And yeah, I'm so excited. The

day has come. It's past lives day on the Bechtel cast. It sure is. And we have a wonderful guest here with us to chat about it. She is a sociologist and author of Real Inequality, Hollywood Actors and Racism. It's Nancy Wong-Yoon. Hello. Hi, so good to be here. Thanks for joining us. And just because this is an audio medium, I just wanted to shout out Nancy's Everything Everywhere All at Once poster that is behind her. Just an important addition to every home.

Exactly. Is that a show that you've talked about on your podcast? Not yet. We haven't covered it yet. There's a few movies that we're sort of like, we're going to make the listeners wait and wait and wait and then surprise them one day. Yeah. This movie, however, we got so many requests that were like, we cannot play the long game with past lives.

So to start, we're curious, I know it's a fairly recent movie, but what is your history with this movie? You know, I was attending Sundance virtually the year that it screened in Sundance. I think actually maybe it was supposed to do it over the pandemic and there was delays and it finally screened in Utah and Sundance, but because I was only joining online virtually, I couldn't see it. And it built up all this anticipation for myself. I was like, Oh my gosh, that's like the one movie I really want to see. But they were, uh, you know, sometimes they just do in-person screenings and they don't allow for online viewing for journalists and general audience.

And so that was the year that it came out. But A24 had contacted me with an early press screening, I think soon after it premiered at Sundance. And so I drove all the way out to LA. I'm in the suburbs. And I was just sitting in a screening room. There were only maybe four or five other journalists, but it was a very small screening room. And I remember watching it and being emotionally drained and excited and just something that I had never seen that I would expect to kind of reflect my own experience and enlighten my own experience and speak to it. So I was, yeah, I was really, I had a deep connection with the film since the first time I saw it.

And then you spoke to Celine Song and wrote a piece about it, which is how we found you. Yes. So I then pitched an interview with Elle and, you know, pitched my idea because after I saw the film, I thought that it was a film about immigration for sure. But that the entire metaphor of the relationship had to do with kind of immigrant lives. And so that was how I pitched it. and I ended up talking to Celine very long about it and it's so funny because she and I talked about our yin yang just like you all talked about yours and she really really believes in it and I felt like I was so also enlightened about yin yang through Celine and her saying that she and I had yin yang too because I actually saw her on, before I interviewed her, I saw her very, very briefly at this thing called the Gold Gala. She was, it was an Asian

American kind of award show, and she was walking the gold carpet. And I, I like flagged her down. I said, Hi, Sully, I'm going to be interviewing you soon. Hello for Elle. And thinking about, I guess, all the moments where we happen to meet up with one another, right? All the different potential and unrealized and realized connections. All of that is to think about as part of kind of a larger, I don't know, fabric of some sort. It was very beautiful to think about. That's really beautiful. Oh, my gosh. Love it. Well, Jamie, what is your relationship with this movie? I have a kind of funny relationship with this movie. I mean, it's Celine Song's debut film. I wasn't familiar with her work prior to this. But I was

really excited to see as a longtime Greta Lee fan, who is I mean, it's so funny, because I primarily thought of her as a comic actress because she's done so many great TV roles over the years. I always think of how great she was in Russian Doll, but she's, I mean, she's been in so much over the years and like rarely gets to properly lead. So I was very excited to see her and I was going to see it when it first came into theaters

and I texted my brother, like, I'm going to go see Past Lives. And he had just seen it. And he knew I was going through a gnarly breakup. And he literally texted me, Jamie, I don't think you're in a good emotional place to see Past Lives right now. I remember this. Yeah.

Yeah. And I was like, wow, my brother has never said anything remotely like that to me. I guess I'll listen. And so I didn't see it until a couple of months ago when I checked in with him and he said he thought I, in fact, was now in a good enough emotional place to see past lives. And I think he was right. But yeah, I mean, I loved this movie.

I loved this movie. We'll get into it. But it's so beautiful. And I feel like it's and rare to see done thoughtfully on screen and I just think this movie is so beautiful and I'm excited to talk about it. Caitlin, what's your history with Past Lives? I saw it in theaters and I really enjoyed it and I really appreciate it when we're doing an episode on a movie that there's like nothing bad to say about the movie because most of our job is wow everything was so problematic or the things that were interesting and subversive are sort of overshadowed by all of the other problematic things that are happening. And this movie is just like pure wonderfulness, you know? And I appreciate movies like that and episodes like this because

it's a breath of fresh air. But yeah, so I'm also excited to talk about it. Should we just get into the recap and go from there? Let's do it. Let's take a quick break first, and then we'll come back for the recap. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture

of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you.

Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110, 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not.

What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people.

There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? Like what's the history behind bacon-wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon. Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. Season two. Season two. Are we recording? Are we good? Oh, we push record, right? Okay. And this season, we're taking an even bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history. Saying that the most popular cocktail is the margarita,

followed by the mojito from Cuba, and the piña colada from Puerto Rico. So, all of these... We have, we think, Latin culture. There's a mention of blood sausage in Homer's Odyssey that dates back to the 9th century B.C. B.C.? I didn't realize how old the hot dog was. Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever And we're back. Okay, so here is Past Lives. We open on three people who are having a drink at a bar. It's an Asian man, an Asian woman, and a white man. And we hear nearby people speculating on what these three people's dynamic must be.

They're like, oh, are two of them in a relationship? Are any of them related to each other? Are they just colleagues? Well, we're about to find out. Can I say something? I actually was just in Boston and I went to a restaurant and i could only be seated at the bar and i literally saw three people that looked like the three people in the film way i even snapped a photo but then i was like i felt uncomfortable posting it because you know they're i didn't do

it like with their consent the asian woman even has short hair, just like Greta Lee's character. And Nora. And I just, I just thought, what are the chances that maybe there are a lot of people that, you know, the kind of, you know, three people and you don't know what their relationships are to each other. But this literally happened, I think, two days ago. Oh my God. No way. And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm going to be talking about past lives.

And I can't believe I'm seeing potentially a real life past lives moment in front of me. Selene's song opened our third eye. This dynamic is everywhere. Exactly. The thing that you don't notice and all of a sudden it's everywhere. Yes, that is the Asian woman with an Asian man and a white man. Probably happens all over the country, but it was cool to witness in real life. Yeah.

And I wonder what their dynamic was. No idea. I didn't feel comfortable enough to go like, Hey, y'all remind me of past lives. Is he your ex from your home country? That would have been terrible. A woman would be like, are you racist? What are you doing? No, I'm just a huge past life span. That's hilarious. Okay, so we see them in the present day, but then we cut to 24 years earlier.

We are in Seoul, Korea, and we meet two 12-year-old kids, Nayoung and her friend Haesung, and they are friends and classmates. Haesung always walks home with Nayoung after school. Nayoung is upset because she's used to getting like the top grades in her class, but Haesung has outperformed her today, so she's crying about it, and he's trying to comfort her. Very sweet interaction between kids. And then Nayoung arrives home. Her family is gearing up to immigrate to Canada. I think Toronto is where they're going. And she and her younger sister are picking out English names. Nayoung goes with Nora, her little sister goes with Michelle. And then Nayoung tells her mom about Haesung,

how she'll probably marry him someday. And her mom asks if she wants to go on a date with him. So her mom takes the two of them to the park for a little kid date. Hyesung's mom is also there. Nayoung's mom wants to make good memories for her before the family leaves for Canada. So that's why they're kind of chaperoning this date. And they have a nice time on the date. They even hold hands. It's so cute. It's adorable. And the two moms have a conversation too. Yes.

Haesung's mom is asking why they're immigrating, especially because Nayoung's mother is an artist and her father is a film director. And she's like, why would you leave all that behind? And I think she responds with, well, when you leave something behind, you also gain something. I love that. That's really deep. It's such a deep kind of immigration or just, you know, life kind of.

It's such a simple conversation, but I remember feeling the weight of that. Like, oh, I want to write that down and think about that some more. Totally. And then Haesung finds out that Nayoung will be leaving soon. And he's sad. And we're sad. And then Nayoung and her mom, dad, and sister move to Canada. We see her briefly at school. She seems to be feeling out of place.

And then we cut to 12 years later. So now it's 2012. Nayoung, who goes by Nora now, is living in New York City. Ever heard of it? She's played by Greta Lee. And she's chatting on the phone with her mom. And they're joking around and like looking up people that they used to know on Facebook. And Nora is like, well, what about that boy I had a huge crush on, Haesung? And so she looks him up and she sees a post of his on Facebook from a few months prior where he's like asking about her and looking for her. So Nora messages him on Facebook being like, hi, it's me.

God, that's already such wish fulfillment to be like, oh yeah, your crush from when you're 12, they're looking for you. They still love you. Right? The 2012 sequences, I mean, they're beautiful narratively, but I also was just like, wow, celine song nailed like there were a few 2012 details that were kind of triggering the like sound of a skype call you're like

it's been 84 years since i've heard the sound of a skype call or like the facebook messenger interface you're like god this is like this is where I made so many mistakes on this exact interface. It's wild. It has been 84 years, and I can still see the grainy video quality. So, Haesung, now played by Taeohyu, gets the message from Nora, and he's all excited. And then they start corresponding back and forth. They do a Skype call. And he's like, I've been trying really hard to find you. And he was having trouble finding her because she had changed her name to Nora.

And they catch up. She tells him that she's a playwright. He is in school studying engineering. And then he gets very kind of earnest, tells her that he has missed her. And she's like, me too. And they continue meeting up pretty regularly over Skype. And she tells him about this upcoming month-long artist residency that she will be doing on Long Island, I think. And he says, oh, well, I'm going to China soon to learn Mandarin. And she's like, oh, you should come to New York and learn English. And he says that he may be able to come visit,

but it would probably be like a year and a half from then. And she's like, well, it probably won't be a year at least until I would be able to come back to Seoul to visit. And so she decides that she wants them to stop talking for a while because she wants to commit to her life in New York and accomplish something there. And she feels as though her like considering this visit to Korea to see him is sort of like distracting her from her goals. That is the point in the movie where I was like, okay, she is stronger than me. She is stronger than me. I would be like, let's do long distance forever. Why not? What's the worst that could happen and I was like wow good healthy boundaries love to see

it yeah I think there were a lot of like technical difficulties where they're missing each other because of the time difference and you know tech drops and you know someone's sleeping someone's calling in I think it's it's like the kind of typical long distance and also across time zones issues. For sure. And so, you know, Nora communicates this boundary to him and he understands, but he's really sad about it. And they say goodbye. Then Nora heads to that artist residency retreat. And it's at this house where she meets Arthur, another writer

played by John Magaro. Yes, the future author of Boner. Oh, I think I missed that. Oh, his book is named Boner. Which is one of my favorite details in the movie. So funny. Is it nonfiction? Is it fiction? I don't really care. I love that his book is named Boner. Yeah, I have no beef with Arthur, but I just think that that is the funniest,

like, Bret Easton Ellis vibe ripoff, like, white guy novel. It's called Boner. Yeah. Oh, I love that detail yeah yeah i think i paid no attention to him at all i was like could you just maybe go away so that the two people that deserve to be with each other are together like i think it just speaks to my level of maturity where if the word boner's on screen my eye eye is going to drift there and I'm going to laser focus. Yeah, I was like, oh, there.

Seriously, I saw, I think I've seen the movie at least three times and I never saw that. You see it in that scene where they're at a bookstore, I think he's doing a book signing. And so there's stacks of his book. And I forget what's on the cover. What's on the cover? Did I even miss that? It's just words, right? It's just words. It says Boner. And then there's a photo that I think has nothing to do with Boner. But the title is very visible. Also, just another shout out to celine song's restraint at having that be the title and having no one pointed out i would not be able to shut up if my weird husband wrote a book called boner but it's not what the movie's about no but where's the sequel in which that is all they talk

about where's this to screen adaptation of what if that's celine song's next project the adaptation of boner of boner just kidding just kidding watch it just enough of arthur in this movie but that was just like a great detail yeah i agree oh and we never mentioned that all this is based on her real life right it's loosely based on celineingsong's real life. Yeah, yes. She also met, I think, her husband at an artist thing, and he is a writer, and she did have a childhood love, and the whole bar scene actually

happened in her real life, that is when. It was like during the bar scene that she started thinking about, oh, I wonder what people think of us, and I'm going to make this into something. This is a movie. Yeah, I love that. Okay, so Nora and Arthur meet and they get to chatting, they hit it off. She tells him about a word in Korean, inyung, which means providence or fate, but it specifically refers to relationships between people. For example, it's In-Yun if two

strangers pass on the street and their clothes accidentally brush. It means there must have been something between them in their past lives. That's the name of the movie. Or if, for example, two people get married, it's said that there must have been 8,000 layers of Inyeon over the course of like 8,000 lifetimes. And then Nora is like, Teehee, I don't really believe in this. It's just something Koreans say to seduce someone. And then he's like, oh, and then they smooch. Meanwhile, Haesung heads to china for this language exchange program but he's not smooching anyone he's sitting next to someone he's sitting next to someone eating yes there's a look yes

they're eyeing each other yeah which is probably maybe you know more culturally it's not like you smooch someone on the first well it's not like they smooched on the first night but i guess the artist colony is different than meeting someone true true people are so horny during artists residencies so it seems to be true i know it feels like adult summer camp kind of right i think that's why people go on them they're like sure i'll write a little bit but i'm here to fuck i wrote 40 words and i fucked everyone and you're like good for you okay so then we cut to another 12 years later so we are now in present day uh nora and arthur are married they still live in new york city New York City. Nora is an accomplished playwright, and Arthur has a book published called Boner. And then we learn that Haesung is coming to New York to be there on vacation, and he wants to

link up with Nora. Although he does know that Nora is married. So it's not like that will be a surprise to him. And so he arrives in New York and he and Nora meet up. They have a tender reunion. They walk around the city and catch up. My God. It's so good. It's so beautiful. Like the second they see each other, I'm crying for the rest of the movie.

Yeah. But there isn't anything cheesy in terms of like, it's not like, you know, all of a sudden, they embrace and they go into a passionate kiss. No, because she is married. She's happily married. And yet there is this tension that is so visceral, just by them looking at each other speaking in and laughing and giggling and small little touches and uh it's um it's it's better right it's like the it's like how k-dramas are in terms of you know more of um a slow burn very slow burn yeah i mean just the casting in this movie is off the chart like and just how subtle the performances are because it like there is this bass part of me that is like kiss but it's like but they're really it's just like so well done and again like selene song has incredible like restraint and like how she paces these sequences it's so beautiful there's a scene where they're sitting in front of like a merry-go-round kind of thing. And she's talking and he's like staring very intently at her.

And I'm so conditioned from watching movies that I thought he was going to kind of like lunge at her and kiss her during like a lull in their conversation because like we've seen something like that so many times and it never happens and that's not the type of thing that would happen in this movie because this movie doesn't like adhere to any of those Hollywood tropey sappy corny moments like that and problematic moments exactly yeah yeah god it's like yeah that's like what we've been talking about every week for eight years this like the conditioning to surprise kiss someone and there's no consent and there's you know it's all of this you know patriarchal wish fulfillment for sure and i mean i think that's probably part of why I wasn't emotionally prepared to see it at the time is because of. And he actually says it rather than, I think,

embody some sort of toxic masculinity where he starts to be suspicious of her or questioning or whatever that we're used to in terms of Hollywood tropes. Yeah, yeah. I'm really excited to talk about, like, the men's reactions to things because it's, I think, very interesting.

But in any case, so Nora and Haesung are catching up. He tells her about his girlfriend who he is not currently with because he feels as though he should make more money and be less ordinary before it's appropriate for them to get married. And Nora asks him why he was looking for her all those years ago. And he's like, well, you disappeared so suddenly from my life. And he was upset about it. And he clearly, like, didn't get any closure from it. And so then Nora returns home to Arthur. And she's like, you were right. He did come here to see me. And she goes on to say that he has very like Korean views and lives a very Korean lifestyle. And that when she's with him, she somehow feels both less and more Korean, which is something I'm interested in talking about further. And then they also talk about their relationship, Nora and

Arthur's relationship, and you know, whether or not she's happy with the life they've built together. And this is when Arthur is kind of joking about a fictional version of this story where, you know, two childhood lovers reunite and run away together after all these years. And there's an evil white American husband who's trying to stop them and all this stuff. And Nora's like, that's not going to happen. I've built my life here with you and I love you. And he's like, okay, tight, tight, tight. And she also says, I'm not going to give up my play, you know, rehearsal, which I love. It's not like, oh, I'm either with you or with him. No, it's I have my own career. And you know, I'm not giving that up. That was actually, I think, the most important point that

she made. Yeah, she said something like, I'm not going to miss my rehearsals for some dude. Referring to his long lost childhood love of hers as some dude, which is pretty funny. Well, I also like that Arthur is trying to play off being insecure, but he is so insecure that he's not thinking about her career. And she has to be like, well, hold on. Love you and everything. But like you're just saying, Nancy, like you are not the only reason that my life is here now. Like I've busted my ass to have my life be here for a lot of reasons. Yep. Okay.

So the next day, Nora and Haesung meet up again. And it's his last day in New York before he heads back to Seoul. And he meets Arthur, too. They go out for pasta and for drinks. And then we reach that scene that's the opening scene of the movie where the three of them are together. And people are, you know, trying to guess their dynamic. And the conversation is a little awkward because of this language barrier between Haesung and Arthur. Nora is having to translate quite a bit. And then Haesung gets serious for a moment,

and he tells Nora that seeing how much she loves her husband, he didn't realize how much that would hurt him. He also says he's having all these thoughts of, oh, what if I did come to see you 12 years ago in New York? Or what if you had never left Seoul when you were a kid? But they both acknowledge that what was supposed to happen, happened. Though Nora does wonder if there was something in their past lives that brought them back together. In Yeon, of course, and they talk about how In Yeon brought Nora and Arthur together and how there's even In Yeon between Arthur and Haesung. I love that. That was like my favorite, right? That it's always, I think the love triangle is always represented so one dimensionally. And here, there is a connection,

right? There is a connection even between the two men definitely yeah what we're used to seeing is the not to be bringing up titanic again but the billy zane leonardo dicaprio of it all where they're both yeah hero villain yeah so yeah this was far more nuanced no No one punching anybody here. Nope. No punching, no shooting, no shipwreck. Nope. But heartache, a lot of heartache. Heartache, and I think Kaysen says that, you know, I didn't even hurt him to even like Arthur, right?

That it's kind of like, because it's like you want the idea that, oh, she's married to some terrible person. I'm going to be able to whisk her away. But instead, no, she's happy with a really good guy. Yeah. And just the fact that Selene Song clearly has so much love for all three of these characters and takes the time to explore how they all feel about each other. It's just it's so rare. Totally. Okay, so as they're parting ways, Nora waits with Haesung as he's waiting for his

Uber. And they stare intently at each other. And then he says, what if this is a past life too? And we're already something else to each other in our next life. And she's like, yeah, maybe. And he's like, well, see you then. And then he gets in his Uber and leaves. And then Nora walks the few steps back home. And she's crying and Arthur is there and he embraces her. And we're crying, everyone's crying. It's very emotional. And that's the end of the movie. So let's take another quick break and we will come back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation

is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into

a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you.

Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up?

Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago.

We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this.

Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos!

Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. And we're back. Nancy, I want to start with talking with you about your connection to this movie and also just the process of writing this beautiful piece.

Yes. So when I saw the movie that first time, I had during the pandemic thought about going back to Taiwan. I was like, oh, there's all this anti-Asian hate. I didn't even choose to come here. I was like, Nora's character came as a child. Although when I talked to Celine, she did feel like she had a choice, right? I came when I was younger and I felt like, you know, my parents just brought me. It was not my choice. I left behind a lot of loved ones, no childhood sweetheart, but my grandparents who raised me, who were basically for a place that I had left. And at one point, I think the first time she comes back from meeting Hazel, she says to Arthur that she was emotional. She's like, I think I just miss Korea. And when she said that, I was like, yes, I just miss Taiwan. I really, really miss Taiwan. And I actually went this past winter. It had just opened up just recently.

And I went and I just felt this kind of longing that I haven't felt actually so strongly. And I think the movie really captured that, that it's not just about relationships, but it's a life that you might have had if you hadn't left. Right. And I think Korea and Taiwan, these are countries that are democracies where we're not fleeing war. At least when I came, I wasn't fleeing poverty. So it's like, why am I even here? Why? Why? You know, why can't I be somewhere where there's public health, you know, health care for everybody? Pretty raw deal. Exactly. So, um, but when I talked to Cindy, she was much more

focused on, you know, we are where we are meant to be. Right. And I think that the longing that is captured, it really triggered stuff for me, but I think she was, she, I mean, she's fine with audiences taking away whatever they, she said that people asked her like, or just started to talk to her about exes and how some people went back to exes and other people were like appreciating what they had. People had all sorts of relationship reactions, you know, because like you said, it was very specific, but super universal

in the idea of past loves. But for me, I definitely came to it and the interview really about centered on the immigration story. And Caitlin, you had asked about how why, you know, she would feel simultaneously more and less Korean when she was with Haesung. When I went to Taiwan this past winter, that's how I felt. I felt more Taiwanese, but Taiwanese but also less right so I realized the cultural differences I realized there were language barriers that I didn't know but by the time I was leaving after two weeks I felt like oh I am I feel now more Taiwanese you know because

I had connected with parts of my culture and realized that I knew I understood it more memories of it coming back more than um I would think of when I'm here in the States. So, so it is this kind of when you're in between, when you're a young immigrant, you have dual identities that, you know, that are always kind of shuffling back and forth. And I think that the film really captures that both viscerally through, you know, a relationship, but also just her kind of reflection on it. Yeah, I mean, it's such a familiar experience and feeling for a lot of immigrants, especially those who immigrated as young people, or also just children of immigrants who feel they belong to two different places, but also in some cases feel like they don't really belong to either place.

And, you know, the feeling of not being able to say a proper goodbye to the community and the place you left behind and the kind of wonder of what would things have been if I had never left. And all of these things that the movie, I think, handles really thoughtfully and beautifully. Yeah, your piece is, and just the conversation is so beautiful. And you both sort of make this connection that I think I was so swept up in the emotion on my first viewing, but watching it the second time, it's the the inherent connection of haesung to her home and like how it is this deep emotional relationship but also he represents more than that and like how do you navigate that sort of split and how do you navigate like what you are understandably connecting to someone and then separating well who are they and who am I in

relation to them and it's just it's beautiful I feel like this movie really rewards on re-watching absolutely and gives you another chance to see Boner on the cover of the book thank you for saying that. Celine talks about their memories of each other, who they were as children was kind of frozen, right? Because of the kind of very fast parting. And so when they come together physically, right? They see each other through Skype throughout the year,

but this is 27 years later. And that kind of connection because of that memory of who they were. And then, and then the kind of shock at Oh, you are different, right? He's so Korean. And it's like, when I go to Taiwan, I'm like, wow, they are culturally distinct, you know, from, from where I came from. And then wondering, is that connection still there? Is that possible? Because there is this gulf because, you know, I've been raised in another culture and yet this longing for that and memory that I once was here. So it's this, it's so complicated. And then, and it's wrapped up in one's identity, right? And then you're kind of like, you're searching within yourself. So, so many layers of emotions that come up for this kind of immigration love story.

Totally. And Jamie, to speak to your point about the sort of like universality of it, even for people who aren't like separated by a cultural difference even if you just like reconnect with someone from your childhood who you were once very close with but then you're separated by you know 20 or so years of not having spoken and not keeping up to date with the other person this has happened to me where like i've reconnected with high school friends many years later and then i'm'm like, oh, we don't. It's kind of weird, isn't it?

This is we're very different people now and we don't have that much in common anymore and that much to talk about. Not that that's necessarily what's happening exactly with Nora and Haesung. But you get like kind of glimpses of that where there are these cultural differences or just like personality differences. Yeah, you just change as you get older. Like I think about, yeah, like questioning. And I thought this before and just reconnecting with someone from the past. Like, does it make sense for me to be in this person's life? Or do we just miss who we were when we knew each other?

Or like where we were when we knew each other? And it's like a kind of a painful question because sometimes the answer is like yeah maybe our time in each other's lives like it might not make any sense anymore and it's nice to reconnect but like and I think especially when it's like a romantic connection it's even harder to parse out because you're a horny. And so that's challenging. But to be like, you know, because you can see, even though at no point in the movie was I thinking like, Nora is going to leave with Haesung.

There are moments that you like can, or at least maybe I'm projecting on her, but you can see her trying to like game out like, what does that look like a year from now like how would it actually work and that's like a necessary but like painful thing to watch a character navigate on both ends there's another piece i found about this movie that i also thought was great. It's by Sylvia Jiholi, published in Little White Lies. It's entitled, Past Lives Finally Pushes the Asian American Diaspora Genre Into the Present. And I want to kind of like half quote, half paraphrase this, but it opens with a quote. It's no secret that Hollywood loves a formula. When Asian American stories proved marketable to Western audiences in the 90s with Wayne Wang's Joy Luck Club and Ang Lee's Father Knows Best trilogy, a new cliche similarly arose to

counterbalance its unconventional subject, Asian Americans as walking oxymorons, the only identity in the world to be labeled with the ethnicities they weren't enough of. A classic protagonist symbolized the split between East and West, someone who was too Asian to fully fit in with work colleagues, but too American to adopt their parents' values as gospel. The resulting conflict was one that inherently viewed the motherland as an impediment to true assimilation, implying a life perpetually lived in service to either Asian approval or white validation. These films potentially resonated with an earlier generation whose immigration was inherently predicated on conforming to whiteness, but is no longer the case for someone like me, who came of age in the same country with little care for that sort of acceptance. Diasporic, diasporic, which way do you say that? Diasporic. Diasporic filmmaking should push self-definition beyond this binary, something I see in Celine Song's past lives, unquote.

I know that was a long excerpt from that. But yeah, the piece goes on to examine the kind of emotions and nuances that surround the act of leaving your home country, of assimilating into a new culture and mindset of missing your home and how a person's feelings toward those things evolve as you mature. And yeah, I just thought this was like such a great piece that touches on so much of what the movie is doing. Yeah, there isn't kind of a East versus West. There isn't actually even much talk about that so much in that. Oh, my gosh. Even though she says, you know, I think I miss Korea. It's not, you're not hit over the head with the immigrant story. You see her as a young immigrant. You see where she's at and you see how, you know,

she and both Haesam wonder about what their lives could have been if she hadn't immigrated. But it's really centered on the relationship, right? And it's not about, like, you see her parents too, but her parents are not tortured in any way. And her parents, I mean, her parents were artists. She's an artist. That's kind of anti-stereotype already, because I think there's a lot of one singular representation of immigrants,

even though a lot of immigrants from East Asia are coming from, you know, actually because of the laws, they had to be highly educated because those were the ones that were, you know, the United States was letting in post 65. And that they're artists, which is not something I think that Asian Americans are typically portrayed as, especially in the immigrant generation. And they didn't leave because of a push factor, but they just wanted to try something new. It's very, that's very universal, right? It's like just people moving through their lives and making choices. And I think that that is true

because I think about, I think my parents just wanted to come here because that was the thing to do for educated Taiwanese Americans. It wasn't like they didn't have jobs back at home. They just wanted to do, they wanted to be like overachievers and do what everybody,

and it was a trend or something. You know, it was just, if you could do it, you do it. And, and none of them said that they came here to make a better life for me. That's not like, like those, those stories and those tropes never resonated with me. I mean, I had, I grew up kind of dysfunctionally too. So I never think of like, I owe my parents anything or anything like that. And that wasn't represented in this story either, right? Her mom and her just had a great relationship. They talked about, you know, they just talked and they visited and it wasn't a big deal. And I think that it is a very modern representation.

There's no tension between that. And there isn't any kind of white worshiping in the sense because she's literally sitting between these two people that she is you know that she has loved and now she loves and it's just life right yeah yeah so many tropes subverted in this movie and again it's so refreshing yeah and it's just like effortless to what the story is where i like that i don't know i feel like often in stories, I'm like, I want to see this character's dynamic with their family more, which I wouldn't have disliked it in this story. But it felt like where the story lies is so confidently with these three characters, and more specifically, these two characters. And I really appreciate how and it also is like, it doesn't work if

Celine Song isn't an amazing writer, which she is. And there's no, I feel like there's a lot of writing that self consciously kind of over explains like, what happened in the interceding 12 years, but you're just shown it. And, you know, you don't know everything, but you know, enough to be deeply invested in what's going on with these characters. Because it wasn't, I don't think, until my second or third viewing where I was like, I wonder what her sister's up to. But, like, the story is so focused. Where's Michelle? Where is Michelle? Yeah.

That's what I want instead of Boner is um what's Michelle up to but in a lesser movie that would have pinged for me but it's like this movie is just completely we are with Nora and I I really really love that same and like we've mentioned the movie cares enough about the other characters, besides Nora, to really kind of fully explore their emotions as they relate to the events of the story in a way that I thought was also interesting, because, you know, a big component of this movie is examining how Nora feels about her circumstances. But there's also a decent emphasis on the men's feelings and not to talk about men on the Bechdel cast. But

these are two men who I think are, I would say more emotionally intelligent and expressive than a typical Hollywood movie male character. And I really appreciated that. I was so blown away by the scene where Nora and her husband Arthur are having a conversation where she has just come from her first day of hanging out with Haesung. And Arthur says, is he attractive? And she's like, yeah, I think so. And then he's like, well, are you attracted to him? And then she like pauses to ponder this and then says, I don't think so. It's just that he was, you know, a memory from my childhood, and then he was an image on my laptop. And now he's a physical person. And that's very intense, but I don't think it's attraction. And you can tell that Arthur isn't necessarily like thrilled about this situation, and he seems

insecure about it. But I also feel like he's handling it fairly maturely. He doesn't fly into a jealous rage, which is what I'm accustomed to seeing in real life and in movies, which is really more of an indication of the low bar for men's behavior than it is for anything else. Right, because he's not perfect either. And I think that that's equally important. You can tell he's insecure. You can tell when he feels awkward and out of place. And even at some times, I think annoyed. I'm sure every viewer feels a little different about his reactions. And I kind of felt different from viewing to viewing where sometimes I'm like, oh, I get why. And other times I'm just like, let them have their moment get out leave yeah get out of the way but all this to say that I felt like that conversation between the two of them was one of the like most honest and mature conversations I've seen on screen between a married couple kind of ever like characters are never that honest and open with each other about, because you would normally see, oh, are you attracted to him?

Of course not. No, I only have eyes for you, baby. You're the only person I've ever been attracted to and blah, blah, blah. And it's just like, that's not real life. Conversations like that might happen, but it's between people who aren't mature enough to be open and honest with each other and to accept other people's honesty. I was like blown away by how profoundly honest and open it was. I loved it. Yeah, and it was real for people who have healthy, long term relationships, right? It's, I definitely I actually, with my partner, my husband, and we've been married many, many years, over two decades. And thank you. And I have actually had a very similar conversation like they did. And because if it's based on mutual respect, you don't want to accuse someone, you know, that you've known

forever. But you want to ask those questions just to make sure because of that, you know, that tiny bit of doubt, and also making sure things are appropriate. Right. But that's negotiable as well. Right. If you trust each other. And I think that it is realistic. And I'm sure it's probably based on what happened right in her in her real life. And that's and I think that's the beauty of this film. It resonates so much because I think it is rooted in reality rather than, like you said, these Hollywood tropes. But, you know, what's really interesting is that at the very, very end, you know how Arthur waits for Nora.

I was talking to someone and they said, oh, it's because he didn't trust her. And I was like, oh, that's not how I read it at all. I thought he was waiting for her because he knew she would be emotional and would need support. But this is the whole, Jamie, what you were saying that, you know, a lot is left unsaid. So, you know, one, this person I was talking to had a totally different interpretation of that because you don't even hear them say anything. You just hear it. You just see him holding her as she's bawling at the end.

And it's like, I felt like he was standing for all of us who are bawling. Like I need that hug too, Arthur. Because this lovely man just left. And I don't know what to do. And so, yeah, so I think this, I don't know, people's expectations of what, yeah, the jealous husband is supposed to look like. Totally. Yeah.

And he describes it in this like fictional hollywood version of the story that could play out in a very hollywood way where it's you know two people reconnect after a long time and discover their love for each other again and the woman leaves her evil husband to be with her childhood sweetheart and that's like again the very like fantasy hollywood version of that story and he's like joking about it because like this movie is the antithesis of like a typical hollywood narrative like that and again like selena song finds these really funny visuals that she doesn't call out but like this scene where nora comes home and she's had one of the most emotionally challenging days of her life, reconnecting with Haesung and her husband is gaming. And you're just like, oh, my God.

He's playing Call of Duty or something. Right. And you're just like that. He's trying to distract himself. I was thinking he really needed because he's like thinking about you know his wife out with her yeah exactly so he has to game in order to like distract himself that I thought that was my interpretation of that yeah totally again it's just like showing not telling of like okay they are both having a day and also it's just like kind of this domestic scene and getting back to what you were

talking about nancy about their relationship there were moments in and yeah i think you know there is like an understandable tendency to project your own relationship history onto this movie but i really appreciated that they had enough mutual respect that when he asked her challenging questions where it probably would have been more calming or more soothing to hear the like, no, it's nothing. I feel nothing like Nora is like, I don't know. Like, I'm trying to figure out how I feel about it. I'm not sure. And like doesn't give the reflexive comfort that I think in a lot of hetero relationships women are conditioned to give men of just and that does go both ways but I think more so in that direction of like well no of course and like rest assured blah blah blah and but instead this is like a true

partnership that is gonna have to weather some challenging shit and that he is considerate enough of her to know that like he can't understand the set of emotions she's navigating and what his job is is to be present for her in the way that she needs and that's like his test here and I think he does his best. I don't know. And I agree with your read at the end, Nancy, that it's just like, I'm sure he was a little anxious, but it's also like, I mean, if there's any time you're going to need a hug, that's the time. That's it. Yeah.

Yeah. And when he's sitting next to her on the bar, just kind of sitting and letting the two of them talk, that in of itself, I thought was a was really showing his support. For sure. So many straight white men would do whatever they could to try to insert themselves into that situation and just like be obnoxious about it. But he's like, he's sitting there thinking about the plot of Boner 2. Or replaying his gaming call of duty highlights just playing passively in his mind or tetris even though it's like all three of them are in not easily navigated situation it's weirdly soothing

i think to see characters in a movie and just know that you're like everyone is doing their best everyone's doing their best and um it's nice even though it's like it's an impossible thing to do perfectly because there's no such thing as a perfect way for this scenario to go but everyone's doing their best. And that made me feel, even though it's a difficult watch, if you're not emotionally prepared for it, it is nice to feel like, well, these three characters did their absolute best to get through it with respect for themselves and for the other people, which is just kind of a rare thing to see. Totally. Because with Hyesung, he is a character who, even from childhood, he is sensitive. He's easily emotionally affected. But you also see him maturing over the years as far as how he

processes and expresses his emotions. And I'm not saying he's necessarily like a beacon of emotional intelligence, but what man is. What man is number one. Number two, we are so used to seeing men on screen who are extremely emotionally repressed. And that doesn't come from nothing. Obviously, there's a real life precedent for that. Or we see a man whose, you know, main emotion that they express is aggression. But we see this character who is far more sensitive than, you know, your typical male movie character, where when he's learning that Nga Young is moving away, he's visibly upset by it. He's like trying his best to comfort her in different situations and be supportive, but he's also 12 and he doesn't really know how to navigate that. And then when he's in his 20s, there's a scene where he's out drinking with his friends and one of them is upset because he's just broken up with his girlfriend. And Haesung embraces him and he's like, let it out, buddy. It's okay to cry. And I'm like, that's such a nice thing to see. And then different times he

tells Nora, like, it wasn't a joke for me to look for you. I actually missed you and I tried really hard. And when she tells him she wants to stop speaking for a while, he starts like softly crying. And then he goes, why am I like this? Because he's, you know, a man navigating having emotions in a patriarchal world, which encourages men to not express their emotions. And so, you know, I understand his reaction, but, you know, he's like openly upset, but also respecting her boundaries, which is a thing we also never see men doing. And then finally, you know, when they reunite in their 30s, I think they must be like 36. He is talking about, you know, how sad he was when she abruptly left and how he didn't know it would be this hard to see how much she likes her husband. But he's also acknowledging that like,

this is where you're supposed to be, Nora. And I feel like he's implying that any hope he has of them being together or winding up together, he knows is unrealistic. And again, that's such a mature way to handle that whole situation. And it was really encouraging for me to see these two different characters who are men handling these complicated situations with the level of maturity and emotional intelligence that they display. So no red flags, there's just two green flag men. I know, which is like, God, then it becomes like a fantasy genre. When in my life has there been two good options? Interesting. Yeah, usually there are zero.

Yes. No, but I really appreciate like, even though Haesung, I think like says much less because we're navigating Nora's relationships centrally. It's interesting on the rewatch when you sort of stop, can remove yourself from the like pining and wanting these two characters to be together. And like, you can see it a little more clearly of how the types of attachments they have to each other, where it seems like for Nora, Haesung is representative of both her childhood and her home. And in the reverse, Nora seems to represent sort of this, I don't know, I mean, because I feel like I've had versions of this experience of someone who exists in your brain only as a kid. And there's all of this potential for yourself that you attach to people that you knew when you were younger. And because we know that he doesn't seem quite as sure of his professional path as Nora does,

he feels like, I mean, he's doing well, but there are insecurities he feels about his income, about his career. It seems like in the professional sense, he feels a little more untethered than Nora does who is very confident and passionate that this is she's doing the right thing and again it's just like the writing in this movie is fucking incredible because it's never stated but you can I don't know the more I watched it the more it was like oh there's like a part of him that is like when I was close with her when I was a child I had all of this potential and none of this uncertainty and it's like a longing to reconnect with that too or I

don't know maybe I'm overthinking it but I was like I've definitely thought that I totally agree because I think that he says that um he keeps track of her prizes that she wants to win, right? You know, what's the prize you want now? A Pulitzer, you know, a whatever. A Nobel, and then a Tony. Yes, yes, exactly. And I feel like he was living a little bit vicariously through her, and maybe she represents something aspirational. And he does ask, would I have looked for you if you hadn't left?

Like, would he feel the same way? It's like she represents something that, yeah, like an unfulfilled aspiration, life that he might have had. And that is so universal, right? This kind of like, you know, unfulfilled wishes. So I love that, Jamie, because I think I see that now. I didn't think about his, I think I just saw everything from, you know, Nora's perspective and really centered on her, which is great, because we don't even have enough films where we could do that. Yeah. And so why not? So do I even care about why he likes her and why her

husband is, you know, playing games and still there? I don't know. I didn't even care about his book. That's how little I cared about their perspectives. I didn't even see the boner. To be fair, we're weird for noticing boners. No, no, no. It was because I really was just, I was able to see myself, I think, in Nora. And that's so rare. And to be able to kind of just

fully live that part was just exciting yeah yeah and I feel like it just like speaks to how strong this movie is that you can look almost anywhere in terms of like what character you're giving deference to and you're feeling where you're like, and it's like a rewarding and like heart wrenching experience no matter where you're looking. And I cannot wait for Celine Song to make a million movies, as many movies as she wants. This is just a fun fact. I did not know about her because I didn't know much about her before this movie came out that she I mean, because this is sort of an auto fiction kind of screenplay. She is a playwright, but that during lockdown, she directed a live production of Chekhov's The Seagull using The Sims 4 on Twitch. And I just think that's one of the best sentences I've ever read.

And so few people managed to do something artistically fun and interesting during lockdown. And I was like, wow, she really is the goat. How does a brain think of that perfect idea? Tell me about it. I just have a couple stray observations, which the first one being, I appreciated seeing a married couple who are in their mid 30s, who don't have kids, and there's no mention of them trying to have kids. Obviously, I'm not sure what this fictional couple's future holds. Maybe they'll have kids down the road. But as a child-free by choice adult myself, I appreciate seeing on screen representation of other child-free adults who are close to my age. So stray observation number one. Another thing I would say like maybe my only note for this movie is that Nora and Haesung call each other something in Korean that translates to a pretty ableist word in English. I don't know if it has the same ableist connotation in Korean, but I guess just a reminder that, you know, we on the

podcast encourage people to be mindful of the language they use. And even if it is in a joking context, to be aware of anything that has ableist under or overtones. So that's my little speech about that. And then the third and final thing I have for this movie is this. Onions have layers. I knew this was going to happen. And inyans have layers. I knew it.

I was like, I didn't want to do it at the beginning, but I'm like, Caitlin, I trust. See, this speaks to our inyan and our deep connection that I knew you were going to bring it to Shrek. And it was really just a matter of time. It was a matter of time. And I saved it for the end. Yes. You're welcome, everybody. Were we actually going to talk about whether it passes the Bechdel test?

Yes. We can do that now, unless you have anything else you'd like to say about the movie before we start to wrap up. Oh, gosh. I thought that it deserved best picture. I knew it wouldn't because of the momentum, but instead they rewarded a film about men behaving really badly.

To say the least, yeah. Yeah, toddler-esque backstabbing. And I thought, because there was a lot of talk about why maybe Past lives was going to be looked over because it had no real conflict and no real toxicity and I thought and then that's when it made me realize wow Oppenheimer is all about toxicity right that to me the whole relationships between all the men were how they were going to screw each other over. And I realized that that's not a movie for me. That's not a movie that I'm attracted to. I don't like that watching that it doesn't give me any pleasure and it doesn't make society a better

place. So, so I really felt that that contrast between exactly what we're talking about today, that kind of emotional maturity of the men and just relationships in general. And the objectification, of course, of women, you know, in general and the objectification of course of women you know in that movie and and i just thought wow we're not going to give it to the healthy wonderful representation that actually can you know elevate our world but anyway that was that was my thought about the awards season yeah it did win best independent film though award so yes i was like they they would never let two good movies win in a row and so because everything everything where all at once won best picture in 2023 i'm like whatever wins in 2024 it's not gonna be for me that was my prediction. And the Oscars are dog shit. But yeah, in terms of the Bexel test, I believe it is a pass.

Yes, it passes. Yeah, Nora talks to her mom about, you know, her English name that she chooses. They also talk later when Nora is in her 20s. And the conversation does quickly turn to like, oh, let me look up this boy I had a crush on. So, you know, it's not necessarily a movie that passes constantly or consistently Bechdel test or barely pass and it can still be a poignant thoughtful feminist movie with good representation right and many movies that do pass the Bechdel test can still be problematic pieces of shit so yeah like kind of do by accident or like not thoughtfully or yeah I mean there's nothing more i feel like we have to say this every so often just to remind people because i will never get over the like whatever dust up on twitter where people were like fire island doesn't pass the bechdel test and you're like shut up oh

my god like it is not the law but spiritually i sometimes i'm just like the pectal test is a more of a vibe check which this movie passes handily because yeah you get the technical pass when nora talks with her mom but also this is a movie that is written and directed by a woman that centers on a woman's experiences thoughts thoughts, feelings, relationships. Yeah, no notes. There's also, there's a beautiful scene on the airplane between Nayoung and her sister. That's right.

And they are speaking in English with each other. How are you? I am fine. And you, and you, and you. I feel like that scene in of itself should be embodying the Bechdel test in that. Because that scene represents their relationship. Also, this huge transition that they're going to make between, you know,

immigrating from Korea to America and that kind of humor. But also, yeah, just kids trying to make light of something that is going to, it's like a huge thing that's going to change their lives forever. Right. So I thought she really is an amazing writer because yeah, that one little scene of them practicing English and laughing about the kind of, I don't know, I think, I think anyone who's taken any kind of language course can really relate where you kind of are silly on a very basic level with a new language and it's a way to kind of assuage the the anxiety you may have about you know having to try something new and communicate with people that you know you're going to barely be able to communicate with and and the safety of doing that with a sister um really i think captures all of that so beautifully so that scene no boys no boys, no men, no one, you know, and then it's not even going to transition to that. It's really just about the two of them.

I thought that was a really beautiful, beautiful scene. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for reminding me of that. I almost forgot about that scene, but it's so adorable. It's so tender. The last thing I wanted to shout out with this movie is, because I feel like sometimes we kind of forget to shout out the crew. And Celine Song worked with an incredibly diverse crew in terms of gender in terms of race. I mean, it's just like, it really seems like it

was in just based on what I read and saw about behind the scenes, just like a really beautiful group effort and also for all my 2012 heads out there if you were a fan of the band grizzly bear which i was when i was in college they did the score for this movie so yeah that's the shout out for my college radio heads very nice and i think the producer the big producer is the same producer that did parasite as well yes so i thought that was amazing like oh wow parasite and past lives it's kind of very different movies yeah but it's like that that woman can really spot them you know in terms of great great films totally and then the cinemat, I hope I'm getting his name right, is Shabier Kirchner, who most famously works with Steve McQueen as well, and almost exclusively in features. And I want to shout this out because I feel like, you know, he is a male cinematographer

who almost exclusively works with women directors, which is, again, just a rare find. So a shout out to him for being able to work with women directors, which is, again, just a rare find. So a shout out to him for being able to work with women. Most men are bad at that. Certainly. That brings us to our metric, the famous nipple scale, the most important metric of all time, a scale where we rate the movie zero to five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. And I'm going to give this movie the full five nipples, a rare instance on the show. But this is a movie that not only centers a woman, it centers a woman of color, it centers an immigrant, it is written and directed by a woman who also has that exact experience. And that is why the movie is so well handled and

thoughtfully done. And yeah, I love just the exploration of Nora and her journey with her experience as an immigrant. And also the two men around her, again, not to be like, wow, the male characters are awesome. But in this movie, they're really thoughtfully written and characterized in a way that I found to be really refreshing. And I hope that men see this movie and learn a thing or two from it. So yeah, so much to like so many things that were so well done about this movie. So I'm going to give it five nipples. And I'm going to give them to Celine Song and Greta Lee and also Nora's little sister Michelle. Yeah, I'm going the full five too. No reason not to, right? What a rare pleasure to get to say that. No, this movie, I mean, we've talked it out, but just it is so beautiful. It just made me so

excited to see more of Celine Song's work and to see someone just like put a thoughtful, effortless story on screen. The performances are wonderful. All the technical elements are wonderful, but it doesn't work if Celine Song isn't an incredible and thoughtful Philip Baker. And so that is why I'm giving all five nipples to well okay i'm going to split in half half of them go to celine's song and the other half go to the seagull on the sims 4 yes of course yes uh nancy how about you i'm gonna also do five nipples and five boners for the for the good men that have shown us how men can support women in a way that is healthy and and certainly centered on her and i appreciate that i think that's why the you know we are drawn to these portraits of men because they are so supportive of her and they allow her to kind of have her full emotional journey and not get in her way.

So, you know, I think that's all we can ask of, you know, our friends and family members and loved ones is to be supportive of our emotional journey. So, yeah, everything y'all said about the intersectional, it's in an authentic way, in a way that feels real, that hasn't been seen before, that isn't white-centered, that isn't male-centered, but it, emotionally pretty healthy, mature adults. It portrays something that is unfortunately lacking in cinema. But at least it was nominated for Best Picture, so I hope more people see it. I remember giving a talk at Belmont University in Nashville and saying that Past Lives was the best film that I had seen that year. And then I said, who else? Who else has seen this? And then a white man, a white, you know, student raised his hand. And I said, what did you think of the film? He's like,

I thought it was the best film of the year. And I said, see, it's not just me, an Asian woman that thinks this white, this fine white gentleman also believes the same. So I love that, right? That we share the same opinion about this movie because it spoke to us. And maybe for him, he's like, I want to see, you know, role models that I can relate to or men that cry because I cry, you know, whatever it is that he related to, or maybe just good storytelling, whatever it is, right? I think really great films can speak to everyone across different groups and hopefully, again, make our society better behaved and more supportive of

one another in a community. We can only hope. God, I mean, I know we're wrapping up, but yeah, you say emotionally mature adults in a movie. I'm like, yeah, that is another very rare thing. Because I mean, I love messy characters. But yeah, so many movies are adults behaving like children. And this is adults, mature adults navigating messiness. Rare. A perfect movie. There you heard it. Everyone gave Past Lives Five Nipples.

It's a perfect movie. If you haven't seen it, you have to. If you have seen it, turn this off and go watch it again. Yes. But before you do that, Nancy, thank you so much for joining us for this wonderful discussion. Yes. Thank you so much. Come back anytime. And where can people find your work, your writing, follow you on any social media, plug anything you'd like to plug? Oh, my goodness. That's such a funny question now that social media has changed. I used to always say, follow me on Twitter. And now it's like social media. Talk about emotionally immature. I feel like I don't know where we are.

Adults behaving like children. Yeah. Yes. The people that actually are in charge of social media. But you can find me on my website where you can download this article. The article we talked about on Elle, my interview with Celine Song, as well as

links to my books and reports and all sorts of stuff. So it's Nancy W-Y-U-E-N dot com. And I am Nancy W-Y-U-E-N.com. And I am Nancy, W-Y-U-E-N on most. That's my handle for wherever you are. So excellent. Oh, and my book, Real Inequality. Sorry.

My book is Real Inequality, Hollywood Actors and Racism. It's about experiences, not just actors, but just Hollywood racism in general. I'm actually in the process of updating it. So perhaps and hopefully for like maybe a 10 year follow up, that will be coming out. I'm also writing a memoir based on the TV shows and films I watched growing up, as well as the Asian American films. I may be working past lives into my memoir actually because it really did speak so much to my own

understanding of immigration and so many films like The Farewell and Minari and and now this film really speaking to maybe helping me process my own immigration trauma so much so just like movies you know can help you do that in their best they can be cathartic they can be yeah revelatory so i think that's um that's what films that are true doing truly doing the work and all the things that i listed are autobiographical right yeah and they all came out within the past like three years which is hopefully indicative of a like trend of there being far more stories like this and stories about underrepresented people and communities so thank you again for joining us we really appreciate it come back anytime bring any movie thank you so much fun so much fun well

i will talk about everything everywhere all at once if you want to let me know because that there are so many similar things right in terms of you know not a supportive male figures and um yeah i know and in the meantime you can follow us on mostly instagram these days at bechtel cast you can go to our patreon aka matreon we have two bonus episodes that come out every month there on a fun little theme that we cook up, and it's $5 a month, and that's at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast. And our link tree is where you can find a lot of other goodies

that we have going on yeah and uh with that you can get our our merch at tpublic.com slash the Bechdel cast and we will be back same time same place next week see you then see you then bye the Bechdel cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mo Laborde. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan, with vocals by Catherine Voskrosensky.

Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus, and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree.com. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams.

Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from blumhouse television iheart radio and realm listen to dream sequence on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts i'm dr laurie santos host of the happiness lab podcast as the u.s elections approach it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever but in a new hopeful season of my, I'll share what the science really shows. That we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.