Derry Herrera
Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.
Zoooma
From Thailand, this is a bizarre art house film about loneliness and the struggle to survive. Unfortunately it moves at a snail's pace and doesn't really have much to say. Our main character doesn't want to live then doesn't want to stay in his apartment because of the smelly corpses there. His brother's dead and he meets a girl whose sister has just died. They form a relationship in a weekend over nothing incredible happening. Really?! This is supposed to be comedy, in a way, but I fail to see it, perhaps because I'm just an American used to American or British comedy. I dunno. The camera work is at times beautiful but other times I was left scratching my head wondering why if this person knew what he was doing. Audio, too. I don't often have a hard time understanding a film but this is a little perplexing. Maybe, just maybe, I'll watch it again one day to see if I can see it in a different light, a light that sheds some sense on it.4.6 / 10 stars--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener
Chrysanthepop
'Last Life in the Universe' works both as a mood piece and a dark romantic comedy. The dry humour, silence, washed out colours, visuals and music help set the atmosphere which is gloomy and depressing but has a sense of humour. The Kenji (Tadanobu Asano) and Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak) unconventional love story comes across beautifully on screen. There are no saccharine moments where the boy and girl profess their love to one another. It is displayed with marvelous subtlety. Both Asano and Boonyasak act wonderfully. They convey a lot through non-verbal expressions. Yet it is director Pan-Ek Ratanaruang who deserves most credit. The way he has weaved everything together using minimum amounts of the essential ingredients of film-making only prove that less is more (at least in this case). The end is open to interpretation but given the 'depressing' themes the movie brings forth, it finishes on a note of hope for the two protagonists.
ebossert
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.)
