Norwegian Wood was the first of many Haruki Murakami books that I read. It's simply a gorgeous book full of quirkiness and interesting characters. This past weekend, I decided to rent the film by Tran Anh Hung.
I fell asleep twice while trying to watch this film. It's most definitely not a bad one, but it's definitely slow and walks the line between relaxing and boring. Aesthetically, Norwegian Wood is striking. Really, it's absolutely gorgeous. The music has tragic impact, but is not overdone. The locations are so very pretty, and the colors are just wonderful.
Where Norwegian Wood falls short is the plot. It's sparse to the max. The book is a complicated one, but the movie excludes almost all of the book's happenings and rich descriptions. Key moments form the book, like important back stories and key events like when Watanabe and Midori watch a fire from her apartment are excluded. Midori's family's bookstore isn't even included. It's understandable, as the film is already a little over two hours, but it's disappointing. The only character given the smallest fragment of a personality is Naoko. The effect of this results in forgettable characters and a forgettable film. Important scenes were also changed in location, like Midori and Wantanbe's dramatic scene in the pouring rain. In the film version, they instead have a quiet exchange in heavy snowfall.
The transitions are also very confusing, even for someone like me, who's read the book. I assume Norwegian Wood's audience is intended to be people who've read the book, but it was still very confusing when you go from Naoko's dead body to Wantanabe chilling in a cave and screaming by the ocean with literally no narration.
Norwegian Wood is beautiful in aesthetic, but just so tragic in the execution of its story.
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