orionfalls My best friend spent the first months of 2017 insisting me to read "Norwegian Wood" by Haruki Murakami. I finally accepted after finishing my mandatory reads for college and he lent me his copy. But when I read the summary on its back cover I proceeded to bury it in a shelf as I thought it wasn't the best read possible for the bad times I was going through in life. Destiny has made me read the book while on my summer job here in Paris, making it even more beautiful than it's been per se."Norwegian Wood" is the first book that has ever rendered me unable to keep going on with my to-read list. Its beauty captured me so hard it was truly impossible to concentrate on "To kill a mockingbird" at all for entire days. As I searched for a way to satisfy my thirst for the delicate, soft and marvelously precious atmosphere of the book and finally be able to overcome it, feel at peace with it and move on, I remembered the fact that it was adapted into cinema not long ago. Oh, what a discovery. And not precisely a good one.The bad quality of this movie resides in the fact that it seems like it was made just to be able to say that yes, Haruki Murakami's best known novel has been taken to the big screen. In other words, it's been made just to cover the record. The astounding impatience with which the first 7 minutes of the movie are carried out (during which Toru has already lost Kizuki, moved to college, shown his inaction during student riots, sold some vinyls and said goodbye to his roommate) is just the beginning of the butchering show this film is. The angst that Toru feels at the beginning due to the forcefulness of life's events should've been well exposed and is nothing but an occasional shadow in the way he glances at things and the short statement "All that mattered to me was the books I read". But again, nothing's said about "The Great Gatsby" or any of the other works that marked his pass from adolescence to youth. Never is it well explained that he had no other motivation in life but the inertia of waking up for no reason at all.The movie misses each and every single one of the points it should have made, it spends more time trying to create impact through sad passages than actually building the characters, and finally offers a lame image of a book that could've been turned into a cult film if treated with care, pause and love for Murakami's work. This version of "Norwegian Wood" could definitely pass among the typical evening movies offered during weekends so people have adequate white noise to take their naps.I could write an entire essay about why this movie is a perfect example of what not to do when you want to adapt a book whose entire force lies in the power of emotions, self introspection and an anguish for loneliness and voidness. But all I'm going to say is that it was enormously wrath-producing to witness how Reiko's story is completely ignored, Midori is nothing like what she is in the book and some aspects of Toru and Naoko's relationship are badly and wrongly manipulated just to be able to fit the entire book in 2 hours and 4 minutes like you'd fit meat into casing to make sausage. Seriously, NOTHING is told about Reiko's past (which is profoundly important for the story's relevance in the book) but for some unknown reason Toru still asks her about her husband and daughter during a penultimate scene whose vagueness had my mouth drop open for a good 10 minutes. Same thing happens when Midori's background is totally skipped yet irrelevantly mentioned when Toru discovers that her dad is actually prostrate in a hospital bed.Basically, someone who happens to not have read Murakami's book will think that there was a love triangle between Toru, Naoko and Reiko and won't understand the importance of timing, interlude and process in "Norwegian Wood". Worst of all, they won't understand how Toru finally manages to feel like he has grown up.Ask me what I think about the appalling last scene in which the director proves that he has not understood the book by not making Toru call Midori while watching people walk the streets of Tokyo, and I will probably snap for good.Avoid this waste of time and go read the book. I hope it makes you feel as flabbergasted as it has made me.4/10 and 3 of those points are thanks to Toru's good incarnation and Reiko's honest try to make the movie worth the while.

paul2001sw-1 Haruki Murukami's novel, 'Norwegian Wood', a tale of a young man painfully out of his emotional depth as remembered from middle age through a faint haze of wistful nostalgia, touches almost everyone who reads it. And Trang Ang Hung 's film is a mostly faithful rendering for the screen, with a delicate touch (although I was expecting the character of Midori to be just a little more wild, and unlike the demure stereotype of a Japanese woman). But for some reason, having previously read (and been duly entranced by) the book, I found the film mostly dull, and I don't think this can be entirely put down to having prior knowledge of the plot. Rather, the book is not just exquisitely sensitive in its writing, but also, surgically precise; and the movie captures only the first half of these qualities. Too often, we see an accurate sample of a relationship that, as described in the original, simply had more complexity than what we get to see in the film. Perhaps also, a film must make corporeal figures who in the book are the ghosts of memory. Read the novel, which is Murukami's best; but I don't think this work adds anything to it.

Sindre Kaspersen Vietnamese-born French screenwriter and director Tran Anh Hung's fifth feature film which he wrote, is an adaptation of a novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami from 1987. It premiered In competition at the 67th Venice International Film Festival in 2010, was screened in the Special Presentations section at the 35th Toronto International Film Festival in 2010 and is a Japanese production which was shot on locations in Tokyo, Japan and produced by producer Shinji Ogawa. It tells the story about 19-year-old Watanabe, a drama student at a college in Tokyo in the late 1960s. Watanabe is far more interested in girls and reading books than in taking part in the political student movement, and during that summer he falls in love with his friend Kaeko.Distinctly and acutely directed by French filmmaker Tran Anh Hung, this romantic and humane fictional tale which is narrated by the main character, draws a pervasive portrayal of a young man's relationship with two contrary women. While notable for its versatile and atmospheric milieu depictions, stellar cinematography by Taiwanese cinematographer Mark Lee Ping Bin, production design by art director and production designer Norifumi Ataka and production designer Yuki Nakamura, costume design by Vietnamese actress and production designer Yên Khê Luguern, the fine editing by film editor Mario Battistel, use of colors and use of music, this narrative-driven and literary coming-of-age tale about sexual awakening, friendship and love contains a prominent score by English musician Jonny Greenwood.This rhythmic, somewhat elegiac, at times humorous and nuanced character piece about the incomparable force and excruciating pain of love, is impelled and reinforced by its mindful and frank dialog, cogent narrative structure, colorful and contradicting characters, involving studies of character, multiple viewpoints and the charming and commendable acting performances by Japanese actor Kenichi Matsuyama and Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi and Japanese actress Kiko Mizuhara in her debut feature film role. A distinct and sterling love-story which gained, among other awards, the Asian Film Award for Best Cinematographer Mark Lee Ping Bin at the 5th Asian Film Awards which were presented by the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society in 2011.

Jacqx Melilli Norwegian Wood is hauntingly poignant. What saves it from being a completely depressing film are the beautiful actors. The love triangle between Rinko Kikuchi (award winner for Babel) who plays Naoko, Ken'ichi Matsuyama as Toru Watanabe, and Kiko Mizuhara's film debut as Midori is complicated to say the least.The film is set in Tokyo in 1967 amidst the contrast of rioting students, and students involved in recreational activities dressed in pristine creaseless white shirts, possibly depicting innocence and purity. This image is quickly shattered by the unexplained suicide of young Kizuki, Naoko's soul mate since they were three years old.Visually, the film appears dreamlike as if the lens is masked with a filter with some scenes more blurred than others. The nature scenes, however, appear clear and precise, such as the water droplets on a leaf. The story revolves around the seasons beginning with the spring rains and progressing through to the bitter end of winter, and returning back to spring and new beginnings.I felt that the character's emotions were always at a level of depression or sadness so that when tragedy struck it was difficult for the viewer's emotions to climax and feel the anguish of the character because the viewer is strung along on this depressive ride without relief for so long that any feelings of sympathy for the characters are simply burnt out. It also makes the outcome predictable defusing any surprise or shock that may have occurred had the characters experienced a change in level of emotion.Toru's character lacks strength and vitality making him appear wimpy and submissive. He trails behind Naoko like an obedient puppy as she marches forcefully ahead of him in a bizarre ritual that appears as non verbal ranting. Midori holds the same power over him as she tells him what she expects a man to do to prove his love for her, basically saying that a man needs to be at her beck and call. Toru seems to be at everyone's beck and call as he succumbs to his roommate, Nagasawa's suggestion to find girls to sleep with during their drunken weekends. He sleeps with Naoko when she asks him to on her 20th birthday and he sleeps with Naoko's minder, Reiko, when Reiko tells him, 'It has to be done.' This is after he tells Midori that he considers himself an honest man and that he loves Naoko but will commit to Midori once he frees himself from his responsibility. The web of lies continues as he tells Naoko, when she questions him about whether he is seeing someone else in Tokyo, that he isn't.Norwegian Wood apparently is the polite term for 'cheap wood' which may explain the disposability of morals. It also ties in with the Beatles song whose lyrics tie in with the girl using the boy and explains why Naoko breaks down crying when the song is sung by her minder, Reiko. I don't know if I can agree to Norwegian Wood being a love story because there seems to be confusion of what love is by all the characters. Toru seems convinced that he deeply loves Naoko even though deep down he wonders whether she is just using him to try to figure out her sexual frustrations and dismiss the guilt she seems to feel over the suicide of her first love Kizuki. Did he commit suicide because of the sexual frustrations he experienced with Naoko? Viewers are left wondering.The story seems more about lust than love. It could have been cut by at least 45 minutes as the emotional drain was becoming unbearable. Because the film is an adaptation of a book based on the emotional journeys of three young inexperienced people, it would be impossible for the film to fully explain the feelings of these characters. Midori did not appear the confident girl, she simply was not mourning a devastating loss. She was every bit as vulnerable, insecure and broken as a teenager transitioning into her twenties.As far as performances, Rinko Kikuchi far outweighed newcomer Kiko Mizuhara in her debut role as Midori. It was obvious that Kiko was chosen for her looks as her performance was bland and unconvincing. She is without a doubt irresistibly cute but lacks the acting skills to pull off the complex performance required for this story. Ken'ichi Matsuyama did little to impress. His final emotional breakdown seemed forced and drawn out and didn't quite evoke the desired result that could have won the audience over. His passive nature made him quite the bore well depicted at the beginning of the film when he took to reading books to deal with his grief.There is no doubt that director, Tran Anh Hung created some beautiful moments in the film. The task of recreating what appears to be a very complex story is a credit to him. The Beatle's song, Norwegian Wood is the glue that holds the film together and about the only thing that sticks to your mind long after you've left the cinema.