La ballade de l'impossible

Its hard to review a film like this when you've been looking forward to it so much. While its not my favorite of his books, I'm a big Haruki Murakami fan, and I love Anh Hung Tran's earlier films - I thought this was potentially a match made in heaven.

The film is good - very good. Just not the great film I'd hoped it would be. There are wonderful scenes and great acting, and the cinematography is beautiful. But I think there are some major flaws. The flow of the film is oddly disjointed at times - while the book is very much written from the perspective of an older, wiser man looking back at his immature youth, the film seems unsure of its own perspective. The voice-over is poorly structured, seemingly aimed at filling in narrative gaps rather than giving us the older narrators overview. Oddly for Tran, a director who has been extremely minimalist in the past, some scenes are far too overwrought, not helped by the intrusive and anachronistic score. The casting is also uneven - Rinko Kikuchi is a marvelous actress, but is simply too old to play a convincing 20 year old. The character of Reiko is also played by an actress much younger than the character in the book, but the part hasn't been changed accordingly. That said, Kenichi Matsuyama as Toru and in particular Kiko Mizuhara as Midori are terrific.

I really don't know how someone who doesn't know the book will react to this. I suspect that if you are a romantic at heart, you will like it, even if you find it a bit overlong and some of the characters too thinly drawn. Fans of the book will mostly love it as it is quite faithful (maybe too faithful) to the story.

'Norwegian Wood', a Beatles-song from their album 'Rubber Soul' (1965), makes the very clever inspiration here. Its mood amazingly connects with that of the film, as well as that of Haruki Murakami's book from 1987.

Both book and film are very Japanese. So be prepared for a slow pace, allowing you plenty of time to catch up with its story. Be prepared for a Japanese styling as well. The film also follows the book's plot, more precisely than we are used to in our Western world.

Nou doubt the film 'Norwegian wood' peaks with its acting. Here we talk true Japanese high quality. The unfortunate contrast is made by its disappointing picturing. One can only guess if this is due to a lack of money, or to the desire to apply to 1969-shooting methods.

All in all 'Norwegian wood' is an enjoyable & well made film, allowing you a pleasant evening in the cinema. Those around in 1969 will get themselves carried back to their young days.

When I was a university student, one of my close friends told me that novels by Haruki Murakami were good, and recommended me to read them. I was 19 years old then, and it was the first time for me to read "Norwegian Wood." The novel captured my interest, and I have read it again and again since then, and I still read it even now. "Norwegian Wood" is one of my favorite books.

The novel "Norwegian Wood" depicts the university days of the main character, Watanabe Tohru. In the novel, he lives in Tokyo, and goes to university. He likes reading American modern literature. He did not have any friends except for one best friend during his high school days, but the friend killed himself at the age of seventeen. Watanabe has several relationships with women between the age of 18 and 21. Some characters in the novel, other than Watanabe's best friend, have also killed themselves. The novel consists of sex, death, literature, and intelligence.

I went to university, and had some close female friends. In addition, I liked reading classic literature. Furthermore, I did not belong to a sport clubs at university, so the scope of my friendship was limited. In essence, I felt a sense of intimacy with Watanabe while reading the novel. (In fact, I learnt "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger and "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald from Norwegian Wood, and both books were the first English novels which I completed reading in their original language.) Norwegian Wood is an important book for me, so I was glad to hear, 2 to 3 years ago, that the movie version of this novel would be screened. The movie was released about one week ago, and I went to see it today.

Locations shot in the movie were beautiful, and the music sounds good. In particular, I was moved by one scene in which Reiko sang "Norwegian Wood" by the Beatles with a guitar, and Naoko lost her mental stability during Reiko's performance. In addition, the cast members in the movie were also good, especially Mizuhara Kiko, who played Midori, was very cute and vivid.

Since I have read the novel over and over, and remember the whole story in detail, I can go so far as to say that I do not need any explanation for the story in the movie. Because I know the story, I was purely interested in how the film director, Tran Anh Hung, had expressed the novel through the media of a movie.

The movie version of "Norwegian Wood" was not solely a converted version of the novel, but represented its originality and creativity with the help of movie techniques, such as music, voice (cry, laugh, or angry), facial expression, and scenery.

However, it is certain that those who have never read the novel will not enjoy the movie.

(The above comment is forwarded from my blog at http://metropolitantokyo.blogspot.com/)

I wasn't expecting too much, but the problem with this film is that it's basically just a heavily butchered-down version of the book. It's too short for its own good, and because of that you never begin to feel anything for what happens to the characters. Usually I'm not too interested in caring for the characters, but with a film like this it's all too important. It's like the director was trying to fit a 4-hour film into a 2-hour version. Now, it could have worked perfectly fine as a 2-hour version if the director had chosen to present the story in a different way. But as it is now, it's like watching the whole story from the book being fast-forwarded, while you get to see a few random scenes in it's entirety.

Readers of the book will be disappointed because the characters feels too shallow and underdeveloped, while general viewers will leave the cinemas with a big question mark. I won't begin to mention all those small bits of information in the film that are never explained unless you happened to have read the book. That's OK with me by all means, since I have read the book, but either way neither party should be pleased with the film.

If you have read the book by Haruki Murakami this film won't spoil it, but you will be frustrated at what it failed to achieve. Sometimes with adaptations you hate the way they change key details, and take away the meaning of the original work. Here, its a different problem. The film was too languid and reserved. The story of Naoko and Watanabe was generally well done. But it really failed to tell the relationship of Midori and Wantanabe. In the novel she is far more quirky and sparky than was shown , and it would have lifted the film to have portrayed that. Similarly, it would have made it more lively had we seen Wantanabe's strange room mate Stormtrooper. And again it would have been more interesting, if we had seen Watanabe and Nagasawa on their nights out hunting for girls. Norwegian Wood was beautifully filmed, and I loved the sets which resonated with the descriptions in the book. I apologise for mentioning the book so much, but I don't think this film carries its own weight if you haven't read it. I can't imagine I would have felt emotionally drawn into without knowing the book, as the characters weren't developed properly. To sum up - not a disaster, but very much a missed opportunity.