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Thai director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s fourth feature casts the excellent Tadanobu Asano (Ichi the Killer) as Kenji, a suicide obsessed Japanese national working at a library in Bangkok. A series of unfortunate events, including the shooting of his brother’s assassin, results in Kenji moving in with messy Thai prostitute Noi (Laila Boonyasak). LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE follows the unusual and necessary effect they have on each other, played out against a noir sub-plot of violent jealousy and yakuza gang revenge. Ratanaruang, who achieved western success with 2002’s Mon-rak Transistor, has colourfully drawn a synchronistic allegory from the storybook Kenji is reading in which a lizard concludes it’s better to wake up in a world full of enemies than nobody at all. It is a film that plays with the conventions of time - the title fades in more than 30 minutes after the opening scenes, and sound - the caressing, gently undulating score is jarred by occasional door bell buzzing and telephone ringing, usually foiling one of Kenji’s suicide attempts. Acclaimed cinematographer Christopher Doyle has done a marvellous job of framing the story at a skewed angle, and the scene in which a house appears to clean itself is beautifully baffling. It’s a unique perspective that sits harmoniously with the film’s unusual take on its central themes. LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE is a curious mixture, but a blissfully engaging one for it.
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