Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Mabel Munoz Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Tweekums Set in 1968 this film follows the life of Toru Watanabe during a particularly troubled time in his life. His friend Kizuki took his own life a few years previously and quite by chance Toru bumps into Kizuki's former girlfriend Naoko; one thing leads to another and they sleep together on the night of her twentieth birthday. She hasn't got over Kizuki though and spirals into depression and moves to a sanatorium in a forest near Kyoto. While she is there Toru meets another girl, Midori and they become friends. He is attracted to her but loves Naoko. He is conflicted as to what he should do; Naoko represents a past he can't forget and Midori offers a chance for a new, brighter future for him.I can't say how this compares to the novel as I've not read it, however I really enjoyed the film. It is told as a fairly gentle pace and looks beautiful in the scenes in the countryside. It gets off to a fairly downbeat start as we see Kizuki killing himself and there is the constant feeling that he may not be the last person to take their own life… and indeed he isn't. The characters feel more real than those in many romances as we see the various difficulties they face. Sex is dealt with in a fairly matter of fact way; characters discuss sex and sexual problems is surprising detail and when they do get intimate it has a slight awkwardness not usually seen during such scenes in most movies. The cast put in solid but fairly restrained performances. Overall I'd recommend this to people looking for something a little different.

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.

Tom Gooderson-A'Court Set in 1960s Japan, Norwegian Wood is a film about depression, loss and sexuality. After his best friend Kizuki commits suicide aged 17, Watanabe (Ken-ichi Matsuyama) moves to Tokyo and enrols at University in an attempt to escape the depressing nature of his home town. By chance one day he meets his dead friend's ex-girlfriend Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi) and the two begin a loving but strained relationship. Naoko has never truly got over the death of Kizuki and one day disappears, eventually turning up in a sanatorium deep in the forest. Watanabe tries to maintain both a friendly and sexual relationship with the depressed Naoko but this is made difficult by her mental state and the introduction of the outgoing and self confident Midori (Kiko Mizuhara) who vies for Watanabe's affections.The film features some quite stunning cinematography and beautifully shot landscapes. This was great because the actual story was quite depressing and boring. I never really got on board with any of the characters and felt distanced from them. Watanabe is a man who is deeply in love and trying to do the right thing but at the same time living through a sexually adventurous age and wants to have something from both worlds. Naoko was a very loving but deeply disturbed character and the two of them spent most of the film staring into nothingness or out across beautiful vistas. It kind of felt like a two hour long perfume advert. Another thing it reminded me of is the sort of French tragic-dramas that go down so well with critics but are seen by about six people, all of whom hate it. I think you have to get on board fairly early on with this film and I just didn't.Along with the fantastic cinematography the film also features some great prog-rock and psychedelic music from the period which works really well. The score is also excellent and was composed by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood. The great Beatles song Norwegian Wood from which the source material got its name is also used.On the whole the film is incredibly beautiful but feels allusive and distant. Thematically it is sound and aesthetically it works but it is overly long and too dull.www.attheback.blogspot.com

jdesando "I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me . . . And when I awoke, I was alone, this bird had flown . . . ."Now here's the way to tell a love story: Take attractive but flawed lovers, stir the pot with coming of age and depression, add some sub textual commentary on the absurdity and complexity of finding love, nurturing it, and letting it go. Yet, most importantly, begin with a renowned author like Haruki Murkami, and you will be guaranteed to produce brooding, aloof, postmodern heroes, the most romantic kind.All the time during this sturm and drang is the specter of death, that reality and metaphor for the terminal nature of anything we attempt to build such as enduring and enriching love. Toru (Ken'ichi Matsuyama) has a Jules-and-Jim relationship with Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi) and Kizuki (Kengo Kora), all just shy of 20 years old, until Kizuki inexplicably commits suicide. Thus death comes to loving teens, whose lives will forever be colored by Kizuki's violence.As Toru tries to come to grips with Naoko' growing depression and the affections of at least two other lovely ladies, as must happen to handsome, mysterious young men, he witnesses the vagaries of love, some of it tied to the changing nature of youth and some to fate. Although he seems slow to realize that the mystery is also lethal, he grows in a healthy way to expressing and negotiating love as adults eventually learn to do.Japanese director Anh Hung Tran gives an understated lyricism to his landscapes and seasonal changes, serving themes of loss and recovery as the seasons exact their emotional responses. In fact most of the film is like a tone poem, punctuated by impressionism tied to the reality that death so successfully brings to the most romantic setups.". . . The melancholy unity between the living and the dead." James Joyce