Movie Review: Norwegian Wood

Midori asking Toru the question, "What's true love for you?"

Toru, Reiko, and Naoko at the sanatorium.

Toru and Midori during swimming sessions.

Toru and Naoko spending some time together at the outskirts of the sanatorium.

Midori calling Toru to tell him the news of her father's condition.

Toru and his friend Nagasawa at his dormitory room.

Title: Norwegian Wood

Based on the novel by Haruki Murakami

Directed by: Tran Anh Hung

My rating: ★★★★

Plot: Toru Watanabe is a quiet and serious young man in 1960s Tokyo whose personal life is in tumult, having lost his best friend Kizuki after he inexplicably commits suicide. Seeking an escape, Toru enters a university in Tokyo. By chance, during a walk in a park, Toru meets Kizuki's ex-girlfriend Naoko, and they grow close. Naoko is devastated by the loss of Kizuki and spirals into a deep depression.

After Naoko's 20th birthday, which she shares with Toru, she withdraws from the world and leaves for a sanitarium in a remote forest setting nearKyoto. Toru is anguished by the situation, as he still has deep feelings for Naoko, but she is unable to reciprocate. He also lives with the influence of death everywhere, while Naoko feels as if some integral part of her has been permanently lost. He continues with his studies, and during the spring semester meets an attractive girl and fellow student Midori, who is everything that Naoko isn't — outgoing, vivacious, and supremely self-confident. The story then follows Toru as he is torn between the two women in his life, and choosing between his past and his future.

Review: Norwegian Wood may seem like a love story of the surface but it is so much more than that. This is a novel about loss, about the fragility of life, the fragility of the human mind and how our choices can affect others in heartbreaking ways. 

Just like the book, watching “Norwegian Wood” is more like reading a poem than viewing a movie. Images were the movie's strength not words. The scenery was beautiful, I just hoped that they had more voice overs of Toru. But nonetheless, movie was satisfying and great. It stayed very true to the book. Tran did a very good job at making Murakami's Norwegian Wood come to life.

-Roma