Some films don’t just tell a story; they hold up a mirror. They don’t ask you to watch; they ask you to remember. To feel. To confront the choices you’ve made and the ones you never dared to. Past Lives and 6 Days are two such films for me. They arrived from different worlds, in different languages, but both cut through me with the same sharpness of recognition.
Past Lives is a South Korean film, written and directed by Celine Song, and was released in 2023. 6 Days is an Egyptian film, written by Wael Hamdy, directed by Karim Shaaban, and was released in 2025.
Before I go further, let me be clear: I am not comparing these films against each other, nor am I suggesting one borrowed from the other. Each stands on its own as a masterpiece, born of its culture, its director/writer, its truth. What I want to do here is reflect on how they speak to each other – and to me – through their shared themes and their striking differences.
The Similarities That Bind Them
Both films are directional debuts, and it’s astonishing to see such mastery from first-time directors. To begin a career with a work that feels this complete, this emotionally precise, is rare. It’s as if both directors poured their entire lives into these first films, and maybe they did.
Both films also trace love across time, beginning in youth and stretching into adulthood. In Past Lives, time is joined by geography – Seoul, Toronto, New York – while in 6 Days, it is the years themselves, and the streets of Cairo, that shape the story. In both, we see how love bends under the weight of time, how emotions mature, how choices harden.
In both, the girl leaves the boy not by choice; Nora through immigration, and Alia through her parents’ separation and relocation. And in both, the boy carries the wound of that absence for years. It’s not just heartbreak in the moment; it’s the kind of loss that seeps into your bones, shaping who you become.
The dynamic between ambition and resignation is also striking. Nora dreams of Pulitzers and Tonys, and Alia pushes forward in career and social standing. On the other hand, Hae Sung accepts an “ordinary” life, and Youssef drifts through dentistry because it’s what his father wanted. One partner moves forward, the other yields. And isn’t that imbalance something we’ve all seen – or lived – in our own relationships?
And it’s precisely this imbalance – one partner pushing forward, the other yielding – that makes their reunions so charged. Because when two people grow at different speeds, every meeting becomes a reckoning.
The reunions, too, echo each other. Past Lives grounds its reunion in a believable chain of events: Hae Sung searching, Nora reconnecting after his name came up in a conversation with her mother. 6 Days embraces the improbable: a one-in-100-million coincidence. Absurd? Yes. But isn’t that what love often is? A miracle of odds. What are the chances that any of us meet the people who change our lives? Yes, you guessed it; one in millions.
Both films also draw deeply on culture. Past Lives introduces the Korean concept of Inyeon; 8,000 layers of connection across lifetimes. 6 Days uses music as its cultural heartbeat, each song carrying the emotional state of Youssef and Alia through the years. For me, both felt like home in different ways: one through philosophy, the other through melody.
And perhaps most painfully, both films show the fear of declaring love. Hae Sung tells Nora “it’s not like we’re dating,” when she requested they stop talking to each other, even as he breaks inside. Youssef and Alia circle each other for years, always finding excuses – an engagement, a marriage, a career setback – to keep their feelings unspoken. The result is the same: love deferred, reshaped by silence.
How many times in our own lives have we hidden behind silence, convincing ourselves that timing, circumstance, or fear were reason enough not to speak?
But as much as these echoes bind the two films together, their divergences are just as revealing. If the similarities show us the shared DNA of love across cultures, the differences show us the unique ways each story chooses to resolve it.
The Differences That Define Them
The progression of the relationships could not be more different. Past Lives unfolds naturally, through Skype calls and long-distance rhythms that anyone who has loved across borders will recognize. The awkward pauses, the pixelated faces, the way conversations stretch and then fade; it’s all painfully real. 6 Days builds itself on ritual: the pact to meet every December 19th. Illogical, yes. Who would agree to such an arrangement? And yet, that absurdity is part of its poetry. It literalizes the idea of love as ritual, as fate, as something that defies logic.
The presence of the third character is another sharp difference. In Past Lives, Arthur is essential; fully realized, deeply human, and central to the emotional stakes. His late-night conversation with Nora about her dreams is one of the most honest, devastating moments I’ve ever seen on screen. In 6 Days, the third parties are shadows. We hear about Alia’s fiancé, her abusive husband, Youssef’s eventual wife, but we never meet them. They exist only as obstacles, not as people.
And if the presence – or absence – of the third character shifts the emotional stakes, the endings push the contrast even further, taking the stories to opposite poles of realism and fantasy.
Past Lives closes with realism: Nora and Hae Sung accept they are not meant to be together in this life. It is devastating, but it is true. 6 Days closes with fantasy: fate conspires to reunite Youssef and Alia in their childhood cinema. Illogical, maybe even frustrating, but also cathartic if you surrender to it. I resisted it the first two times I watched the film. It bothered me. But on the third viewing, I let go. I decided to take a leap of faith into the fantasy, to be happy for them instead of demanding realism.
And finally, the question of agency. In Past Lives, closure is an active decision. Nora chooses her path, and Hae Sung accepts it. In 6 Days, closure is passive, handed down by coincidence and fate.
Do we prefer stories where characters choose their destiny, or ones where destiny chooses them? Which feels truer to the way our own lives unfold?
Yet beyond these echoes and divergences, what matters most to me is not how the films compare to each other, but how they both found me. This is where they stop being films and start becoming mirrors.
Not just Films, But Mirrors
Past Lives touched me through immigration. I lived that story. I landed at Pearson Airport, just like Nora. I went through the paperwork, the loneliness, the cultural shock. Nora’s first day at school in Canada is a memory for me. I moved from province to province, country to country, chasing dreams, chasing careers. Nora’s restlessness was my restlessness. And the ending, oh, the ending. The conscious choice to not follow the heart, even when love is alive. The endless questions of “what if,” the ache of wondering if the decision was right, if it would be the same ten years later. The silence after the ending haunted me: what happens to them next? Do they forget? Do they regret? Would they make the same choice again? That endless dilemma hurts me even now.
6 Days touched me through home. El Manial is not just a setting in the film; it’s my neighborhood. I know those streets, those trees, that cinema. Watching Youssef and Alia walk them was like watching my own memories. The music, too, resonated deeply. Egyptian songs have always been part of my life, and the film’s choices felt like they were chosen for me. And Youssef’s lostness – studying dentistry because it was his father’s wish, not his own – mirrored my own struggles with direction and expectation.
Isn’t that why we love films most? Not because they tell us something new, but because they remind us of what we already carry inside.
And maybe that’s the point: these films don’t just tell stories, they awaken memories. They remind me of who I was, and who I still am. Which brings me back to the truth they share.
The Truth They Share
Past Lives and 6 Days are not the same film. They are not in competition. They are two mirrors, angled differently, reflecting the same truths: that love bends under time, that silence can wound as much as words, that fate and choice dance endlessly around us.
One film ends with heartbreak, the other with reunion. One honors reality, the other embraces fantasy. And yet both leave me with the same ache, the same gratitude, the same reflection: That love, whether it lasts a lifetime or only a moment, whether it ends in silence or in embrace, is always worth remembering.
What are the loves you still carry; the ones that shaped you, even if they never became your life?
