N.O.A

One way of describing this film is by saying it is intensly beautiful and beautifully intense. Being an avid reader of Haruki Murakami novels; Norwegian Wood is one of my favorites, empathising with all the themes I expect from a truely great story.

The book had me gripped from beginning to end and the film did the same. With a very minimal score you are forced to feel the emotions and listen intently, exactly where the French-Vietnamese director Anh Hung Tran, (who also wrote the screenplay) wants you to. Pictured in the same way my mind had, I found the actors play out the story of unrequited love and the innocence of youth, lost, flawlessly. The female actors, Rinko Kikuchi (Naoko) and Kiko Mizuhara (Midori) made me feel each tear. Their anguish visible in such a way that I was taken there, feeling their emotions with them. I have to give credit where it’s due and I the casting in this was spot on. I had envisioned Watanabe to look just as Kenichi Matsuyama played him. Not only did they bring depth to the story, the actors brought an amazing story to life. Watanabe’s unusual journey to find a meaning for love.

Haruki Murakami has a very strong sense of style when it comes to his writing. He has a way with words that I haven’t found in many other authors. Murakami has had quite a few of his works translated; Mostly in Japan but in Germany, Der Eisbaer (Polar Bear), written and directed by Granz Henman, drew from a short story of Murakami’s. A British theatre company – Complicite – also produced The Elephant Vanishes. Showing that although He has many works, fewer that imagined are confident enough to adapt such stories into different mediums. Probably because adapting someone who is one of the most influential living authors alive, you must not stray too far, Or if you do, have big enough balls to back it up. One way in which I think Anh Hung Tran did this was by having rather a lot of monologue dubbed over the film. In the book some of my favourite paragraphs were that of Watanabe’s thought processes. The way in which he depicts the characters lives around him. And Anh Hung Tran picked out all the best bits, the most eminent and played them over truely dramatic pieces of cinematography.

The scenes themselves showed Japan’s countryside and Tokyo’s busy city life through the eyes of a student in the late 60’s. Already a fan of the 60’s, I have to admit I had not thought much about the 60’s in the east. Edie Sedgwick and The Stones, yes. Japan, not so much. However, if the 60’s in Tokyo looked just as it did in the film, I think I would have loved it just as much as London and New York. Any period movie is a work of art in it self. And a hefty budget is usually required. One thing that stood out to me was that usually the first thing you notice about a film is its setting, its place in time. Although I have read the book a few times, it was not until half way through that I notice we were in the 60’s. This is not a credit to my lack of attention to detail, or tiedness when watching the film, but rather a subtlety that is hard to acomplish with film. The problem I find sometimes with these types of films are that, when the setting is in the past, the time-frame can almost become a charater in the movie; it can draw away from the story. This was definelty not the case here. Anh Hung Tran, shot the film in such a delicate way that this was not a problem. Is this a Japanise cinema trait? I am unsure. A tribute to Haruki Marukami’s postmodern writing? Possibly. One thing I know for certain, this film is not one to be missed. A sentiment to Murakami and his stories.