Last Life of the Universe

An introduction of a fascinating movie I watched yesterday.

Title:
Last Life in the Universe (in Japanese, Thai, and English with Chinese and English subtitles)

Directed by:
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang

Starring:
Asano Tadanobu (a film actor who so dedicated to film-making that he never acted in any TV drama which is most unlike the typical Japanese actor)
Sinitta Boonyasak
Laila Boonyasak

Cinematography by:
Christopher Doyle (an award-winning cinematographer favoured by dear Wong Kar Wai

Basic plot of the story:
Kenji, a suicidal and obsessive librarian, after killing someone goes off into hiding with Noi with just knocked dead her own sister. Being with each other for 3 days, Kenji and Noi slowly finds light in their lives.

Other draws to the film:
* Very solid acting from the cast. Asano Tadanobu even won the best actor award for this film in the prestigious Venice Film Festival. Highly engaging interaction between Asano Tadanobu and Sinitta Boonyasak as neither speaks each other’s language and had to resort to using a third language which neither speaks well. This language handicap greatly brings out the best of their acting.
* The use of comic relief in this film adds a jarring and disturbing effect which, too, heightens the presentation of the ideas the director wants to bring forth
* The seed for this story, the reason for the title of this film, was from a children’s picture book entitled The Last Lizard which is the basis for this film. A lizard wakes up one day to find that all the other lizards were gone. He was the last lizard left. His family was gone; his friends were gone; and even his enemies were gone too. The lizard felt lonely and there was no one, not even an enemy, for him to talk to. He would rather have his enemies around him than be all by himself. Perhaps both Kenji and Noi, and even Noi’s sister, Nid, saw themselves in a similar position as the lizard.
* The Straits Times Life! movie correspondent, Ong Sor Fern, gave this film a five-star rating.