30 Countries in 30 Days Film #16 - Japan

Prior to release of this film, I was already hoping that someone would make a film out of Haruki Murakami's novel. I was a really big fan of the book and the film adaptation didn't disappoint me. It made me even crave for more! I hope that there's a sequel to the book (and also to the movie) but I know that it's pretty hard to create a sequel more marvelous and fascinating than the book.

Murakami's coming of age tale about Watanabe, a young man caught between his first love Naoko - and the shared grief of a tragedy in their past - and a liberated girl named Midori. All the ingredients are here: Murakami's most famous novel dealing with growing up, love, death and heartbreak; Tran Ahn Hung directing; Kenichi Matsuyama and Rinko Kikuchi in the leading roles; plus a Jonny Greenwood score. And amazingly, Norwegian Wood does live up to the sum of its parts - beautiful and deeply moving, I adored every frame of this emotional tour de force.

As a future emotionally repressed angry British male I found this film's sincerity and harrowing long shots incredibly uneasy. This was only accentuated by the haunting beauty of the thing. But this feeling of unease only made me become even more engaged with the piece: the more the character's decisions infuriated/perplexed me, the greater the emotional tension inside my bones. So thankfully this made for a compelling, deeply emotional viewing

From what I can gather, a lot of the negative buzz around this comes from people who are big fans of the novel. As a subliterate thug though, I thought this was pretty great. The film-making is so rapturous and the characters are so resonant and honest, even though I usually don't connect with movies about twenty-somethings sleeping with each other. It sort of takes a turn into histrionics at the end, but overall a great movie. The sequence in the tall grass between Watanabe and Naoko has instantly become one of my favorite long-take tracking shots.

Beautifully filmed and acted story about coming to terms with grief and heartbreak.

Set in 1960s Japan and filmed with a more off-the-cuff approach, 'Norwegian Wood's visuals have a striking natural elegance to them whilst on occasion track for seemingly impossible lengths.
Light on plot this film moves along with a mellow delicate pace and whilst Rinko Kikuchi's (of 'Babel' fame) hauntingly deranged performance is mesmeric, sometimes the film does suffer from being emotionally unengaging, partly down to the reserved central character.
Still it does look stunningly good and with a score by Jonny Greenwood you know you're in for an aesthetic treat.

Beautiful, textured images dominate the proceedings--Tran's use of light is predictably expressive and poignant. The story blossoms under the power of scenes edited together. Rather than interpret for the viewer with lengthy exposition, Tran generally allows the images to speak in the context of other images, building to a crescendo of images and music (Greenwood's atmospheric score!) when Watanabe camps. Midori should probably be more of a force in the film, but otherwise, a very good film.

This is a great film as long as you don't know the (amazing) original book by Murakami.

Based on my favourite author's novel of the same title... well told and true enough to the book. Bit of a downer.