Norwegian Wood (2010)

What caught my attention was the story about tragic loss set in the 1960s. I should have guessed the involvement of sex in the movie judging from its name 'Norwegian Wood' (a very popular Beatles' song- one of my personal favourites too). This should fall under the genre of doom-erotica because there's both in it- lots of tragedy and lots of sex.

It is basically a love triangle between a self-absorbed guy, his schizophrenic friend and a free-spirited girl. I loved the whole idea of it, and unique characterizations. I think I loved Midori the best. Watanabe has to be one of the dullest protagonists I have encountered in a long time. I would gladly call him an indecisive jerk who likes screwing around with the feelings of both girls. I take it that he and Naoko are bound by their mutual feelings of loss, and liked that aspect of their relationship very much. I can't help but say this movie is surprisingly likable and one of the best made by the Japanese (out of the ones I have seen).

With its outstanding camera work this could have easily been a masterpiece. There are scenes which outright take your breath away. I also liked how the relationship between Watanabe and Naoko is shown in every season, providing us with a distraction from their (sometimes boring) relationship in the form of beautiful scenery and settings. It also has very good background score.

Only after I was done watching the movie, its good points crawled into my mind. It was a great story with a good cast and a slow screenplay. There were times I was bored and annoyed while watching this movie, but I reckon the novel must be loads better. I am definitely going to read it.

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The common mistake with fans and adaptations are the comparisons made between the original and the versions. People tend to have high expectations and end up disappointed. I love the novel and so I will try my best not to compare as people should see the movie as it is.

Unless if the story is completely changed. In this case, it wasn't. Fortunately, they kept the story and retained its value.

As for the the actual filmography, it is good. They picked the perfect settings and style. The music is great, as it is in the book, but obviously appreciated better in the film. Really good music. Bit iffy on the scene changes but that's barely anything.

No complaints with the cast either. Their acting is well-done and gave justice to the characters, especially the main ones. The 1960's setting did not get in their way at all. I did kind of imagined Reiko differently though, and Storm Trooper was not given much attention. But that's okay. I was also a bit uncomfortable with Watanabe in the film at first. I felt that he was different but now I don't think so. Kenichi Matsuyama's neutral expressions were perfectly splendid. Rinko's acting also made me realize how much more heavy Naoko's life was.

There are scenes that I thought should've been done differently but that does not make this film a failure at any cost. This is how the director imagined the novel and I am happily content with it. I'd recommend the novel not because I think it's better but because it shows much more than 2 hours can give.

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Watching Norwegian Wood felt more like listening to an emo ballad than watching a film. The movie itself is filled with death, grief and mourning. Even with times that the atmosphere is light and lively, the air is heavy with emotional pain. And as a viewer, you breathe in that air as you watch. Now, I haven't read the book so I'm judging merely from what I gathered from the film. But I've done some research after I finished watching and the film already failed to establish an important aspect: this is Toru's recollection and remembering of the past from present day Germany.

Leaving that detail out in the beginning fails to tie in and give connection to the film's ending (which confused me a lot). I haven't read any of Murakami's book but from what I've gathered, his works are difficult to adapt because of the nature of his writing: poetic and full of prose. Now, if you have such a difficult source material to adapt, to me, it it necessary to ensure that everything ties together. Without knowing that this is a recollection, I would've not get the other symbolism or metaphor in the story itself.

The ending itself is already difficult to show visually (the reflection of "Where am I?" by Toru) isn't justified enough. As I've gathered, the ending is open-ended and the film does show that but the open-ending nature of it ties back to the fact that he's recalling it now that he's in his 30s (despite the voice-overs). This chosen past contrasts with the heavy air of death and suicide and grief that dominates the film and that I believe is important to break out of the cycle of wanting to be saved from yourself.

I haven't read the book so I don't know the reason but I feel like the reason behind Kizuki's death is important especially since Naoko and him are madly in love. There needs to be justification even in death. Why would he just leave the girl he loves and the best friend? Now, these two are forced into this cycle together.

I feel like Hung is trying to do too much here that the characters seem to be in generals rather than specifics. Toru's character despite the narration seems very detached from the audience and focused more on observations from others rather than his itself. This is both a strength and a weakness. It shows Toru's character as not wanting to open up and present himself entirely to others by creating distance but this also shows the lack of development on his part. Of course there are some exceptions. Some scenes where we were able to see his vulnerability. Also, because of this detachment, the film's direction seems aimless and I'm not quite sure what goal the story or the characters are trying to head on to.

I do, however, love the contrasts in this film especially with Naoko and Midori. I might be bias when it comes to Kiko Mizuhara (she's my favorite model) but I think she's incredible in the mood. She has this mysterious aura but lively and simple yet still sexually alluring. And I love how that contrasts with the disturbed and troubled Naoko played incredibly well by Rinko Kuchiki. I think that Kuchiki is able to really portray the grief that Naoko has outshining Toru played by Ken'ichi Matsuyama. I don't want to touch to much on the sex but I guess I have to comment on it since it's very prominent in the film. Because of that I believe that it's not just there for the sake of being there, it's there because it's suppose to be there and it was a conscious choice.

To me, seeing this film with a lot of sex enforces the struggle of the characters not only with the heightening of their sexuality but the increasing amount of grief that they have to go through. In so many ways, it's grief that brought Naoko and Toru together. But the sex here also seems like a thread that bounds these character together, which is not really strong in the film. Certainly, it plays an important part in the fate of the characters.

But all in all, the film has beautiful cinematography and has an indie feel to it with the long cuts. There is still some poetic feel given with the cinematography and the narration (voice-over) helps with the eerie silence. It also has a great soundtrack.

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This will be very short since I saw the movie ages ago, and after reading the book to boot, so a lot of the details are scrambled. I'll definitely be re-watching it soon though, because thinking of writing this the one thing that sticks out in my memory is the absolutely mind-blowing cinematography / photography in the movie. If it had only been still photographs with the narration, I'd have still watched it because it looked stunning.

Apart from this, the story itself is beautiful though slow and depressing, so I'd not recommend watching this unless you're in a certain contemplative, melancholy mood already. Otherwise, it'll really dampen your spirits.

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A disappointing book-to-film adaptation

Unfortunately, I don't think I can recommend this film to anyone. For the people who have also read the book, you'll be disappointed in the execution. And for the people who haven't, you'll be confused with most of the scenes.

It's a film following Toru, a reserved university student who finds himself liking two girls - Naoko, who is dealing with mental health issues; and Midori, a fellow student who is a bit of an enigma. Whilst in the book Toru is very introspective and is able to analyse the relationship dynamics he has with the other characters, film Toru is mostly just a bit contemplative. Clearly, it is very character driven.

Despite that, it seems as if some characters have been toned down a lot. So we end up with a bunch of characters that more or less feel the same in terms of tone, mannerisms, personality, etc. This makes quite a few of the interactions slightly bland at times. Toru, Natsumi, and Midori were probably the most true to the original source material, and were best cast in my opinion.

The problem with this film is that it is very disjointed. From the perspective of someone who has read the book, it feels as of I'm in a literature class and have been given a handful of extracts of the book and I've been made to try and decipher what is happening. It lacks I'm both cohesion, and coherence.

The problem with the lack of structure means that a lot of scenes don't make sense. Since some scenes are cut out to not be too long, we're left with shortened scenes which don't add anything to the plot. For example, a scene between Toru and Midori's father is cut. Instead, we're introduced to him, only for him to stop being mentioned after 3 or so minutes. This leads to a lack of development for many characters, including Naoko's friend, Reika, making their presence seem pointless. The lack of explanation for many scenes invoking certain characters just leads to confusion. And for the scenes included from the book, the dialogue is a carbon copy from the book, not adding anything new, once again, leading to many gaps which are not explained.

And despite leaving a lot out from the book, it is a painfully long film. Since not much happens in the book, the film wasn't able to capture enough of the characters' situations and feelings well enough in order for the film to be the least bit engaging. And mentioned before, some of the characters felt the same.

Although the music fit, it easily could have put me to sleep, especially during the scenes where the characters are having a quiet and slow conversation.

Another thing to note is that it's a particularly quiet film to the point that I can hear the wind and trees more than the characters' voices. However, there are few moments where suddenly, characters are shouting, which caught me off guard since I had turned up the volume quite a bit in order to hear them.

If this was remade today, I do think that it would be a lot better. The only problem is that the author has very sexist views which bleed into his work (including this one), so it would be interesting to see how those aspects (i.e. the male gaze) are improved upon or changed without taking from the overall meaning or plot. Also, as a heads up, Toru has sex with nearly every woman within a 5 mile radius of him, or at least thinks about it. The only exception is Natsumi, who in my opinion, is someone Toru respects and sees almost as a sister in my opinion (at least in the book).

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First off, when I heard that Matsuyama Kenichi was going to be in this, I was really excited. I really love him as an actor. As I was waiting for it to be subbed, I went to the library and checked out the book, having heard that it was one of the most acclaimed Japanese novels. I should have known then. The book was really nothing but the thoughts of a harmonal young man. However, even though I hated the book, I still gave the movie a chance.

I got all the way to last twenty minutes and then gave up. To be fair, at least the movie is a tad bit better than the book, I'll give it that. Still, though, at it's core, the story is pretty much just about a horny guy who is also emo, as are most of the other characters. I felt no chemistry between any of the characters, and most of them just seemed rather confused the whole time.

Seriously, though, I really feel it fails as a deep, moving drama, which it was meant to be, and instead comes across as a pretentious, whiney teenage melodrama.

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