An obsessive-compulsive Japanese librarian living in Bangkok spends most of his days contemplating suicide in his apartment. His life changes when he witnesses the death of a young girl and becomes acquainted with her elder sister.
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Librarian with gangster affiliations whom is obsessed with suicide becomes infatuated with a young Thai girl after bonding over her sister's car accident . Slow paced storytelling, even the love connection is messy. Some may praise cinematography for this is average for Christopher Doyle .. Takashi Miike makes a cameo
Last Life in the Universe, a story about a suicidal librarian who moves in with a pot smoking woman, i'm sure you've already read the synopsis of the film.I liked the story quite a bit, it held my interest for the most part. It had some unexpected twists and turns. The imagery was especially beautiful. A lot of cool shots and directing concepts drew me strongly. The chemistry between Kenji and Noi was realistic and charming. The cute quips they fired back and forth put a grin on my face.However, the pace was slower than it needed to be i felt. It's hard to appreciate good imagery and dialogue when the shots linger too long. The movie could have been about 15 minutes shorter of the director had edited down some of the shots go on too long after we get the gist of it.7/10 heartfelt and intriguing, but let's not take so long about it please?
About one year ago I watched the first 40 minutes, I think, of this film and I liked but it was after midnight so I was tired and this film was a complete "knock out". But I always remembered the images of Tadanobu Asano's character in the first part of the film and I really have desires of watch the film so finally last week I have the chance to get the DVD and finally watch it.In the 30 minutes introduction of the story, we can see the behavior and some of the thoughts of Kenji (Tadanobu Asano), a Japanese man living and wanting to die in Bangkok, Thailand. He is extremely tidy and extremely clean, spending his time working in a library, reading and thinking in his suicide but the reasons of why he wants to be dead are not the common, like he says, like money problems or a failed relation. He has a strange and mysterious view to dead but suddenly he is witness of the dead of Nid (Laila Boonyasak), the little sister of Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak) and he enters in the life of Noi, having a strange but strong friendship with her.I really enjoyed and loved this strange film. I say strange because it actually begins after 30 minutes of introduction and because it has many bizarre scenes. The first part is full of the poetry that Kenji relates to dead and the thoughts of the lizard from Kenji's book feels like another thought of the same Kenji. Also in that part we can see the relation between Kenji and his brother Yukio (Yutaka Matsushige) who is a Yakuza that looks Kenji just as a crazy man. When he enters in the life of Noi everything is different because both are really different from each other, even in the feelings about losing a brother/sister. The end is strange because we can see that Kenji and Noi build a great friendship but also that Kenji is in danger because of the Yakuzas.Anyway, the cast is superb with an amazing performance of Tadanobu Asano. I have only watched him in a main role in other film, "Ichi the Killer", and this role is very different but both performances are amazing. The sisters Boonyasak are great and the support cast is very little but has the funny performance of the great Takashi Miike. It was so great to see Miike as a Yakuza and also the detail of the poster of "Ichi the Killer" with Kakihara is great.Conclusion: I love this film that was my introduction to the work of Pen-Ek Ratanaruang. I recommend this beautiful film to any fan of Jim Jarmusch because Pen-Ek Ratanaruang has all of his influence and because is just great.
I really enjoy a good art-house romance. The Road Home, In the Mood for Love, Chungking Express, White Valentine, Beyond Our Ken, and 3-Iron were all very enjoyable. I've seen Last Life In the Universe (LLITU) now three times. I keep hearing all sorts of excellent references to this film, so I keep watching it to see if I'm missing anything. It's now safe to say that I'm not. It's not a bad film, but it's not a great one either. In a nutshell, it's a well-made movie that stumbles in both its conceptual and relationship development.The theme of suicide is important in LLITU, but I was never convinced that Kenji was suicidal. His friend stops by his apartment, sees the noose, and says "suicide again?", inferring that Kenji keeps implying that he wants to kill himself, but lacks any sort of seriousness about it. His roommate then pulls the noose and it easily slips away from its foundation, thus implying that Kenji is so devoid of resolve that he fails to tie the rope tightly to the ceiling. Later on, the yakuza points a gun at him and he cowers backward, thus implying that he is, in fact, afraid to die. All of this contradicts the claim that Kenji was somehow suicidal before he meets Noi. In my opinion, this prevents LLITU from establishing even the slightest dramatic weight from the theme of suicide. The concept itself becomes superfluous and useless.The same is true to a lesser extent with Noi's guilt over her sister's death. One minute she's crying over it, the next minute she admits that she thinks of her sister "sometimes", even though she died only a few days earlier. She also refuses to return to the hospital and witness her sister's burial/cremation. These events mitigate some of the impact of guilt on Noi's character. Basically, she was "getting over it" too quickly.Some may feel that I am nitpicking, and that's fine. Where this film truly stumbles is in the romantic development between the two leads. There is a patent lack of important narrative. This is not a problem, in and of itself, if the film is capable of establishing non-narrative maturity (i.e., Kim Ki-duk's 3-Iron). This is not easy to accomplish, however, and requires particularly clever scriptwriting to provide interesting events and scenarios that allow the characters to use physical interaction and subtle, non-verbal communication. No such memorable events are forthcoming here. Kenji cleans Noi's house, hits her boyfriend, then they go out for a generic night on the town. That's about it.If the filmmakers wish to convince me that two people could somehow develop a deep caring for one another over a single weekend, they had better provide some compelling moments with significant emotional/dramatic weight. Lots of uninteresting, everyday events fail to do the job. Relationship development is not earned by characters washing dishes, doing laundry, or strolling around an empty house. Sure, it's all very pretty, very slow, and distinctively "art house", but it's also very tiresome, and frankly a waste of time.I'm not sure exactly how people fall in love if love exists at all in this world but I sure as hell know that it requires something special. This film trivializes it and turns it into something so inconsequential and easy to obtain that it effectively becomes a meaningless, petty incident. I've personally been searching my entire life for someone to care for. It's nice to know that I can simply invite a girl to hang out for the weekend and do my laundry. I'll be married by the end of the month.LLITU is not horrible by any means. The acting is solid, the women are sexy, and the atmosphere is calm and effective, but I honestly cannot think of one truly memorable scene in this 104-minute film. Needless to say, it left no emotional aftereffects. It ended, I put the DVD back in its case, wrote this review, and forgot about it instantly. Although something tells me that I'll be constantly reminded of its "greatness" by its many loyal fans.(On a side note, here again we have another art-house film attempting to convey the concept of loneliness, ala Tsai Ming-liang. While this film is not nearly as bad as Tsai's films, it still ultimately fails to say much of anything or contribute any depth or insight to the concept of loneliness, and only provides a very vague, superficial treatment of an implicitly interesting topic. Kiyoshi Kurosawa should again be commended here for creating a deliberately-paced yet interesting exposition on loneliness in his film Kairo. It is interesting to note that his horror film accomplishes more maturity and conceptual development than art-house dramas that attempt the same.)
