Ruang rak nid noi mahasan (2003): **** out of ****
Directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang. Screenplay by Ratanaruang and Prabda
Yoon. Starring Tadanobu Asano, Sinitta Boonyasak and Laila Boonyasak.
by Andy Keast
"Last Life in the Universe" is three movies in one: it's a noir
thriller about a Japanese librarian who kills someone and must go into
hiding, a love story about a lonely Thai prostitute who temporarily
tires of a life of cynicism, and finally a meditation on the theme of
oblivion --a movie about characters whose choices have left them
feeling estranged from the world. Their lives mingle temporarily not
out of lust, but out of need. Director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang and
photographer Christopher Doyle iron each element together into a story
were every scene works in more than one way. What results is a film
that is all at once mysterious, funny, and surreal.
That of Kenji (Tadanobu Asano), a meticulous Japanese informationist
living in Thailand, is a life of quiet desperation. Between his
immaculate apartment, pressed shirts and symmetrical rows of shoes and
socks --all in various shades of grey-- we gather he resigned himself
to a life of routine a long time ago. His attempts at suicide (both
imagined and real) are cut short by alarm clocks and doorbells. His
womanizing roommate is mixed up with the daughter of a mob boss (among
other things), and constantly brings home boxes of who knows what to
the apartment. One night, Kenji unearths a pistol from one of these
boxes, and after witnessing the roommate's murder, uses it to defend
himself from a Yakuza bagman.
Meanwhile, Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak) pals around with her sister Nid
(Laila Boonyasak -the two actresses are biological sisters). The two
women's lifestyles typify the hokum of Bangkok life. They're loud,
foul-mouthed, mercurial, and the pacing and tone of their scenes
comply, following the Southeast Asian photographic template in contrast
to the Japanese one for Kenji. Nid suspects her boyfriend of cheating,
and so on a similarly fateful night the two drive around looking for
him, and Nid is killed by a motorist while stopping on a bridge. She
mistook Kenji for the boyfriend.
The centerpiece of the film is spent lounging around Noi's
beachhouse, smoking, eating, waiting. The film turns inward and
observational, as with a scene where the two sit and eat: bucolic Noi
puts out a cigarette in her plate of rice and anxious Kenji promptly
moves it aside. Or one where Kenji snoops around while an audio book
of Japanese phrases is heard. There are several sequences where the
two leads don't speak at all, as the sparse music of Smallroom does
the emoting for them. Christopher Doyle's photography backs off on
his usual hyperreality and saturation and makes their lark out in the
sticks of Thailand an insouciant one.
Portions of the story take place solely in characters' minds, as with
a remarkable scene where the two sit and watch television. Noi lies
down, disappearing behind the foregrounded box, and it cuts to a nice
bird's-eye view of Kenji and Nid --the dead sister-- on the couch
with him, as if to suggest...what? Kenji's thought process, perhaps
his guilt? The film's 'trailer moment' comes after Noi gets high
while alone in the house and magazines, books and strands of paper
swirl and dervish around her. The former scene is an echo of
Buñuel's "Cet obscur objet du désir", wherein the mistress of
Fernando Rey was played by two different performers without
explanation. Consubstantially, "Last Life" seems to pose its own
questions. Ambiguities, yes, but result is the same: they provide
insight to the characters' personalities without exposition.
The third act I won't reveal except to say that there are
revelations. The actor playing a hired gun for the Yakuza is one of
the film's surprises (when asked at the airport if he has any other
luggage, he responds: "We're only going there to kill someone, and
then coming right back."). Ratanaruang also fleshes out the
dichotomous relationship between Kenji and Noi: both lives of isolation
move farther into oblivion when the two are together. Their life
events may change (Kenji gets into trouble, Noi bounces back from it),
though relative to their place in society, to their friends and
acquaintances, they're still at square one. I was reminded of the
two characters in Weir's "Witness". It's too pensive for a 'fish
out of water' or an 'opposites attract' film, too interested in
the lassitude and languor that life brings, and satisfying for being
so. "Last Life in the Universe" says a lot with very little.
Andy Keast
au3480@wayne.edu
4 March 2005
========== X-RAMR-ID: 39651 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1375928 X-RT-TitleID: 1133133 X-RT-AuthorID: 9883 X-RT-RatingText: 4/4
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