Last Life in the Universe - Appreciating Great Trash


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	LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE (AKA Ruang rak noi nid mahasan) Grade: A Moral: “Everybody’s sad.” An impossibly delicate balancing-act of neo-realist minimalism and something approaching magic-realist buoyancy, all diverted towards a story that is and definitely is not about yakuzas, gangbangers, prostitutes, and hair-trigger violence, Last Life in the Universe ultimately can only be said to run divergent from that which is expected from the art-house, from the pretentious mores of ‘boring’ cinema, and even from the basic fundaments of a narrative feature: for instance, in an almost defiant move of structural iconoclasm, the title isn’t shown for 30 minutes. Funny, in a medium that gives us slo-mo explosions and tentaculoid aliens and cyborg assassins from beyond time, that such a quiet gesture could prove so resoundingly startling. So goes the joys of director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s Thai/Japanese mashup, a series of mannered circumventions from the mean that, despite their ostensible down-to-earth groove, eventually float off into an otherworldly hypnosis. Granted, the film becomes nearly trying during its midsection, when it bogs down into a purposeful inertia, but even here it’s a rarity in how its whispering delivery just makes you want to listen closer. That it has Tadanobu Asano, surely the coolest motherfu-[shut yo’ mouth!] on the planet, at the forefront and as unrecognizable as ever, that it has Takashi Miike in a grousing cameo as the leader of a hilariously bumbling gang, that it has Jesus, err, Christopher Doyle behind the camera is only further meat baked into its delicious pie. But it’s in its ending when Last Life in the Universe suddenly launches into genius, a rapid cycle through suggestions and take-backs and fantasy and retractions that focuses and refocuses the film’s powerful, emotional core and veritably shuts the book on the general deconstruction noted earlier. The threat of spoilers precludes a full discussion, but suffice to say that few movies pull out the proverbial rug in more dastardly, enriching, and thematically perfect ways. Functioning both as a storybook ending and the ultimate refutation of the same, it’s a brilliant cut-to-credits slam for a brilliantly nuanced flick.
© 2008 C. L. Coleman

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LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE
(AKA Ruang rak noi nid mahasan)

Grade: A

Moral: “Everybody’s sad.”

An impossibly delicate balancing-act of neo-realist minimalism and something approaching magic-realist buoyancy, all diverted towards a story that is and definitely is not about yakuzas, gangbangers, prostitutes, and hair-trigger violence, Last Life in the Universe ultimately can only be said to run divergent from that which is expected from the art-house, from the pretentious mores of ‘boring’ cinema, and even from the basic fundaments of a narrative feature: for instance, in an almost defiant move of structural iconoclasm, the title isn’t shown for 30 minutes. Funny, in a medium that gives us slo-mo explosions and tentaculoid aliens and cyborg assassins from beyond time, that such a quiet gesture could prove so resoundingly startling.

So goes the joys of director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s Thai/Japanese mashup, a series of mannered circumventions from the mean that, despite their ostensible down-to-earth groove, eventually float off into an otherworldly hypnosis. Granted, the film becomes nearly trying during its midsection, when it bogs down into a purposeful inertia, but even here it’s a rarity in how its whispering delivery just makes you want to listen closer. That it has Tadanobu Asano, surely the coolest motherfu-[shut yo’ mouth!] on the planet, at the forefront and as unrecognizable as ever, that it has Takashi Miike in a grousing cameo as the leader of a hilariously bumbling gang, that it has Jesus, err, Christopher Doyle behind the camera is only further meat baked into its delicious pie.

But it’s in its ending when Last Life in the Universe suddenly launches into genius, a rapid cycle through suggestions and take-backs and fantasy and retractions that focuses and refocuses the film’s powerful, emotional core and veritably shuts the book on the general deconstruction noted earlier. The threat of spoilers precludes a full discussion, but suffice to say that few movies pull out the proverbial rug in more dastardly, enriching, and thematically perfect ways. Functioning both as a storybook ending and the ultimate refutation of the same, it’s a brilliant cut-to-credits slam for a brilliantly nuanced flick.