Hi all,
After catching the movie, the ending seems a bit elusive to me. Is it that straight forward? That Kenji got arrested for bringing down the three yakuzas and the reunion with Noi is just his imagination?
Can anyone help here?
Thanks!
I don't buy the theory that he was actually apprehended by the police because he's left alone in the interrogation room with all of his knives and guns. No police would ever do that, even to a handcuffed suspect. This, it seems to me, is a fantasy sequence, where everything that has significance in his life up to that point is laid out in front of him.
We may wish to believe the reunion with Noi ending because the book is one of his iconic images, even though it was lost. But it is perfectly plausible to assume that he bought another one.
He also may very well have survived the fall from the bathroom window. The gecko fell from the ceiling at one point, and scurried away, possibly a foreshadowing image. And as a member of a large crime organization, we can assume that he is a resourceful SOB.
There is also the idea that any point in the movie may be a divergent point of possible futures. This may be a commentary on organized crime/action movies in general, because we appear to be witnessing the "down-time" of a crime movie character instead of the normal action parts. (We only see one of the gunshots in the movie -- the brother.) But because we've seen so many other of these kinds of movies, we can fill in the blanks ourselves without the director having to show us what's going to happen. He would much rather give us the interior impressions of the character than the plot of some regular action movie. I.e., Here is an impossible situation that Kenji could not possibly have escaped from. But, from what we know about other movies of this type, we know that there is a way to escape from it, and we would be shown how if this was a regular action movie.
That's a big Twinkie
My take; (if any one bothers to read it xP) Well remember when Noi was sitting at the airport waiting for Kenji and you see the screen...and credits start to roll? I think that signifies Noi's final appearance with the "real life" world in the movie in some way...opposed to Kenji's imagination. The rest after that point is Kenji's continuation and imagination at the interrogation room when he meets Noi in Osaka etc. This movie was really great. There is so many different ways you can interperate the story...all of your guys' opinions seem right. Thumbs up!
shareI like to think scene in the movie is more open ended- You could interpret the entire previous action as a movie watched by an imaginative young woman at the airport! (whose imagined herself as the lead female) Kenji may have been taken to the station as a suspect (the handcuffs) but held in the station as a witness to be interrogated. This makes it more likely he would be left alone with a knife on the table in front of him. But as you say, its wonderfully open-ended!
shareFor the person who wondered if the Lizard book was real. Yes it is a real book, written by someone who committed seppuku, which might lend a hand to why Kenji was so fascinated by it.
This is a movie to enjoy, not analyze to death.
It's a movie, & not a math problem; there are clearly different ways to read the ending (as there are other elements of the picture) and that's part of what makes it, er, art. We may want to know what "really" happens, but what really happens is what takes place in you. Chris Doyle's DVD commentary refers directly to this freedom from narrative objectivity, saying "it is what it is." Some questions simply remain questions. He had a good line too (I paraphrase loosely) about "young people and their persistence in asking the same old unanswerable questions, which we need - to be reminded to keep asking questions." Certainly, a lot of Wong Kar Wei's movies work this way. And I recall an interview with Kieslowski about his movie "Blue," and several scenes that seemed very ambiguous - and upon re-viewing, remain ambiguous - and his being very clear in stating his intention that they should remain that way.
Cinema, being such a totalizing experience, has an amazing ability - once it's drawn us into its web of associations and complex of sounds, words and images - to leave us with a single image, sound or phrase that calls our experience into question, turns our heads around, and leaves us walking out of the theater into a space without words. These doubts can be frustrating, but it can also be exhilarating. Such as the ending of Last Life in the Universe. (The credits starting to scroll on the monitor at the airport was a really nice touch. [As were the slow insertions of the credits at the beginning - the title doesn't appear onscreen until 30 minutes in!])
You are kinda right about the stuff on the table in the interrogation room. The first item is the Lizard book, why on earth would be the police consider that an evidence. Especially since it was LOST. So ,that item could not have been there. Then there were a bunch of chopsticks, you think the police would go, "Okay, evidence: Knife, evidence: 3 guns, evidence: chopsticks!"
But I dont think its supposed to be viewed like that.
What a great movie! And its got one of those "endings" as well!
Just like another great movie (Spring, Summer, Fall/Autum, Winter and Spring) im left a little curious as to what the real intended ending was meant to be.
Does anyone know for sure what the director intended the ending to be interperated as? i.e. left it ambigious on purpose? Has the director commented on this at all?
The interrogation room sequence, all those items on the desk may have been placed there to show us the viewers that he has been caught for his recent/past acts of crime.
We may be thinking up all these explanations when really the director didnt intend us to.
Does anyone know for sure?!?!
Thanks
From what I can recall, he said movies don't always have to make sense, or something like that. I think he's just putting a story out there, and allowing us to fill in the blanks.
I could be wrong; but that's how I feel.
Free Palestine! http://www.palestinercs.org/home_demolition.htm
I saw the extras on the DVD a while back and that comment about us "filling in the blanks" rings a bell.
However, if thats the case then one could also say that he didnt get caught by the police but could have even turned himself in.
Its good that some directors out there leave it to us to use our imagination to fill in the blanks. BUT I hate the fact that I may have reached the wrong conclusion. Sometimes I just like being told whats everythings about!
By the way: Merry XMAS guys!
I like that some directors allow us to use our minds to form our own conclusion; but would prefer to just know the story I just watched. It's more frustrating than rewarding. And you're right; he may have just turned himself in.
I'll have to watch it a few times. Then I'll simply make up my own conclusion, and enjoy it in that way. Right now I'm thinking a lot of what we saw earlier was in his mind. But what's real and what's not; I simply don't know which I feel is which yet.
Free Palestine! http://www.palestinercs.org/home_demolition.htm
And remember, she never saw the bear or remembered the book when he asked about it. So why the reaction to it?
There was something dream like about all of the movie. Except for the police station scene. I'm not sure what that, or anything else means.
I just know I loved the film. That's enough for now.
Free Palestine! http://www.palestinercs.org/home_demolition.htm
Agreed there are some parts not to be understood. It was just surreal. I can't recall the scene b/t when the 3 yakuzas busted into the bathroom. But I think he got arrested partly b/c of the guns he had. Remember they showed all his stuff on the table at the station?
And I thought it was such irony that he was trying to kill himself but failed and instead killed one guy, was involved in the deaths of 3 or 4 others AND 4 other people were trying to kill him.
Didn't the feel at the police station have an entirely different feel about it?
It just seemed more real than anything else.
Guess I'll check around the board, and see if anyone has figured it out yet.
Free Palestine! http://www.palestinercs.org/home_demolition.htm
i thought the ending was open to interpretation but pretty much, that reunion scene was his imagination. his situation was pretty dire (i'm pretty sure having some dead bodies hidden in your apartment is not an easy situation to explain yourself out of) but he had something to live for finally; that scene was totally imagined as it was the ideal fairy-tale version of her life in Osaka. Remember, she was a sex-club worker and said she would be doing the same thing in Japan. This idealized version of her had her working in a cafe, living in a nice apartment in Japan; this was most likly not going to be the case for her.
shareThroughout the movie, there were sevaral occasions where you were presented with TWO events for the same holder... For a lack of better words: two choices for one story.
For example:
Kenji committed suicide and died
-vs-
Kenju lived on
Obviously, the second choice reigned true and the story continued.
Next:
Nid got run over by a car and died, but the girl who Kenji "fell for" all over that sexy brown leather couch switched between
Nid
-vs-
Noi
Obviously, it was Noi, as Nid had died.
Now if you apply this same general formula to the last scene:
Kenji had gotten arrested (seems very unlikely)
-vs-
Kenji goes back to Japan and finds Noi...
I would choose Noi, as every other previous choice fueled the story in a positive-sense, even more so...
But I think the director and/or writer ended on this note so he could leave a choice. So like many fools here, one can think it is all Kenjis imagination. Or fools like me can interpret it not as imagination but as choices and their possible outcomes and consequences.
But it is all about choice, in the end. The choice for us, the viewer, to personally make on what we want? Do we want the story to continue so we could dream on with this silence?
I know I did.
I think that if you try to understand the final (and most of the movie) "logically" you haven't got into the mood of the movie.
A lot of scenes are there for the audience to be filled with whatever you want/feel/imagine.
The ending is the perfect example: jail/Osaka/jail... Which one is "reality", which one is "dream". Or else: what is the order of the scenes...?
Well: YOU decide!!
i thought i´ve understood the ending but then searching in google for some images of this movie i saw this:
http://www.offoffoff.com/film/2004/images/lastlifeintheuniverse1.jpg
i don´t remember this image in the end...so...anyone help me please!!:D
"I think he is arrested for murder... Maybe he gets off, maybe he will be in for years... Then the Osaka scenes with Noi is just imagination of how it WILL be once they meet again. It`s sort of his motivation to live now. To see Noi again.
That`s my more happy version!"
Yeah exactly.
That's my thinking.
Who knows if he gets out or not, he has a reason to live now though and knows that MAYBE someday that would happen.
The thoughts make him happy to be alive again, the thoughts of a future instead of dead-end depression leading to suicide.
If he died from falling out of the window, I don't think the jail scene would be in there. And it wouldn't make sense. I don't know why he would think about being in jail thinking about something else.
Yeah, I came across that image from this link: http://www.dvdasian.com/_e/Thailand/product/20165/Last_Life_In_The_Universe_Limited_Special_Edition_2_DVD_Set_.htm
...but the image is clearly larger. This certainly places a different spin on the viewer's interpretation of the ending of the film. The end of the film, as it is, is ambiguous. But I do believe that the director did give the viewer a choice to decide which "end" is true. Personally, I would like to believe that Kenji did reunite with Noi after all.
I think almost everyone agrees that the scene where Kenji is in a room with a number of objects infront of him was a police station, most likely an interview room. I don't think it's a prison. But after seeing the picture above (the same room but viewed from the other side with those Yakuza guys surrounding him) our identification of the room and the interpretation of the scene changes. It could be that those Yakuza guys capture Kenji and interrogate him in a random room somewhere. Remember in the film right at the end when Kenji picks up a cigarette and lights up? In the picture of Kenji in the room with the Yakuza guys we see Kenji's arms raised above his head with his hands clutching onto a cigarette. Clearly this picture takes place AFTER we see Kenji lighting up a cigarette in the film and we then see him smile before the camera cuts away to Noi in Osaka. This could mean that the director may have intended the sequence of Noi in Osaka as a dream sequence which means that Kenji knows he is likely to face death at the hands of the Yakuza and that his dream of Noi in Osaka was like one final happy thought before he faces his death at the hands of the Yakuza.
Yes, this is A LOT of speculation, but the picture from the link above clearly puts the ending of the film AS WE KNOW IT in an entirely different light.
"For relaxing times, make it Suntory time." ;)
ok, here´s my take on the film and it´s ending and everything
i feel this movie is very emphatic in the characters, in how they are, how are their personalities how they live, etc.
So, the movie is about two characters involved in series of unexplainable events -maybe some, but if they have a logic explanation doesn´t matter, because that´s not the point of the movie-.
So, Kenji is all sad and wants to suicide and he always has everything clean, etc
Then we have Noi who is a mess and lives in a mess and smokes pot and all.
So, the 2 characters meet and they get along welland they share and interact with an opposite personality, so that´s when they start to evolve as characters and end up switching personalities, here are some proofs of it:
-When Kenji goes to the apartment he kicks his books because he is sick of everything being organized and he wants some kind of mess
-When Kenji starts smoking that for me shows that he is becoming kinda like her, and that he is starting to become messy
-When Noi is in japan she is shown as a waitress taking some dishes an i sense some emphasis in the order in which she makes it, i´m one of the ones who think that every scene in a movie has it´s own sense and that´s the only sense i can find to that scene.
-We see Noi walking in Osaka kinda like alone and how kenji used to be.
So in the end i think we have a transition between the 2 characters and all the events that take to get them there don´t need to have sense in order for that to happen.
Well, that´s my take.
Sorry for my english, it´s not very good
Concerning the picture posted above...
http://www.offoffoff.com/film/2004/images/lastlifeintheuniverse1.jpg
I think that's gonna lead to other conclusions.
The items laid before Kenji in the police station are all things that he has had a close association with throughout the movie. Note the L&M brand cigarettes symbolizing his love. The handcuffs symbolize that he is chained to these items; he is more a prisoner of these symbols than of the police; they are part of him and cannot be cast off easily.
shareI interpreted it as he hung himself in the beginning and all the rest was him waiting to be reborn. Isn't that what it meant when the note on the table when hes handcuffed reads "this is bliss" just like his suicide note said.
shareI just have to point out as I did in another thread that the last scene was on of the fish tank which came on briefly during the credits, so if you turned the tv off or closed the player, then you would have missed it.
As many have said, the interpretation of the film is wide open. But the last scene is on of the fish tank in Noi's house with 2 goldfish in it, both alive and swimming, swimming in the same tank I might add. This points to a possibility that Noi and Kenji did reunite as they promised in the film. The scene with Kenji in some place right before the credit may not have been a police station, he would not have been left along with his things if it was. It might be the yakuza's place in which case Kenji may have made some sort of deal with them, which would be what the post image everyone has been putting up (with the yukuza guy holding Kenji's arms up) is all about.
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