Metacritic reviews

Porous enough in their philosophical intent though as not to impose a strict meaning, and yet sufficiently potent to make us reassess our priorities, the array of interpersonal conflicts floating in the idiosyncratic “Blind Willow” feel like elegantly animated lucid dreams full of poetic imagery: far from realistic but viscerally truthful.

Földes’ movie succeeds as both a tribute to a living legend and a reminder that nothing is ever quite as unfilmable as it seems. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is far from the definitive Murakami movie. But for now, it’s one of the best ones we’ve got.

By embarking on a truly unique creative path and embracing the facets of Murakami’s work that seemed unfilmable, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is an elegant tribute to a literary powerhouse whose signature brand of fantasy deserves to be embraced across artistic forms.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is an impressive achievement, a piece of storytelling which balances moments of flighty whimsy against deeper existential questions, marking Foldes as a talent to watch in the world of adult-skewed animation.

It has the ruminative lightness, almost weightlessness, the watercolour delicacy and reticence of the emotions, the sense of the uncanny, the insistent play of erotic possibility and that Murakami keynote: a cat.

Földes’s matter-of-fact approach to storytelling balances the tendency towards quirkiness in the material. Dream logic coexists with the crushingly mundane, in a picture that also showcases the director’s musical talents with an intricate and involving score.

This isn’t a Murakami movie; it’s the Murakami movie.

The film does well to capture the probing literary spirit of Murakami, even if it doesn’t quite manage to channel the intense emotional aspect of its work, instead coming across as dryly ironic and detached.

Some pleasingly odd visuals and a sustained off-kilter mood will likely please many animation fans who haven’t had any exposure to the source material, but Pierre Foldes’s film ultimately fails to create any clear identity of its own.

It works well as a visual companion for fans of the author’s work, and as a flawed enigma for everyone else.