Surreal and dreamlike, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE features strikingly memorable imagery and strong performances by leads Tadanobu Asano, Sinitta Boonyasak, and Laila Boonyasak. Asano is our central character, a librarian named Kenji, who is trying to commit suicide but is continuously interrupted until he ends up bonding with Noi, whose twin sister Nid is killed in a horrific car accident. Kenji’s self-absorbed brother Yukio is yakuza — a Japanese gangster, has slept with his employer’s daughter and now has an assassin on his tail. All this action also involves Noi and Nid, but when Nid is killed in the accident, Noi and Kenji spend time in Noi’s disastrously unkempt beach house. Kenji spends his time cleaning the house, which Noi perceives as the house cleaning itself, but the two gradually fall in love until life, in form of the yakuza, intrude in their pseudo-idyllic fantasies.
I had seen Ratanaruang’s previous film, MONRAK TRANSISTOR, which was a wild, surreal musical, but he pulls it all together for LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE, which, while difficult to follow the plot, and decipher what is real and what is fantasy, comes together visually and emotionally as a powerful, and satisfying film. Both Asano and Sinitta Boonyasak were nominated for Chlotrudis Awards for their roles, as was the film and the director, but on the whole, the American public missed this bizarre film completely. Highly recommended.