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A reunion takes on shocking emotional depth on this sequence from the drama “Past Lives.”

Shot in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park, the sequence begins because the character Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), waits for the arrival of a childhood sweetheart he hasn’t seen in particular person in 24 years, Nora (Greta Lee).

“The thing that we were trying to capture here is this sense of anxiety and excitement, some kind of mix of both, of waiting for your old friend,” stated the movie’s author and director, Celine Song, narrating the scene.

When Nora arrives, the second continues to play out nearly wordlessly. “The way that I wrote this in the script is that, it’s as though he is seeing a ghost. And she’s also seeing a ghost.”

As the 2 awkwardly work together, they principally keep a distance, and the digital camera (with cinematography by Shabier Kirchner) strikes forwards and backwards to spend time with every particular person whereas they’re in dialog. Song stated that on this scene, she needed to maintain each the characters and the viewers in a state of longing and happiness.

Read the “Past Lives” review.

Read an interview with the actress Greta Lee.

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