"Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life."

“I once had a girl. Or should I say, she once had me.” – Norwegian Wood, The Beatles

I managed to catch Norwegian Wood by Tran Anh Hung (2010) in the cinemas yesterday, along with two friends. An adaptation of the novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood is a 1987 novel which brought the author to national recognition, which was ironically, to his dismay.


Alike to the novel, the movie is narrated by the male protagonist, Toru Watanabe, who recounts his relationships with two women in his life – the mentally troubled Naoko and the free-spirited Midori.

Adaptations of novels, writings, ideas and events to the big screen certainly has its shares of problems and challenges, as fundamentally, the creator of both forms of arts would not share identical creativity considerations. Both Tran Anh Hung and Haruki Murakami are intricate in details, but of course, Tran Anh Hung in the visual cinematic form, while Murakami in the use of words.

To me, the film is a visual feast for the eyes, with stunning sceneries cinematographed by Taiwanese born Mark Lee Ping-bin, who was also the cinematographer for Tran Anh Hung’s The Vertical Ray of The Sun (2000), and also for a number of acclaimed movies, such as In The Mood For Love by Wong Kar-wai (2000), The Puppetmaster (1993) and Three Times (2005) by Hou Hsiao-Hsien. I could spot similar stylistic elements from The Vertical Ray of The Sun in Norwegian Wood, that is, the way how the lighting was gently reflected on the characters’ faces, the highly saturated hues of the film, the use of extreme close-ups of nature’s objects, and the camera tracking of characters as they moved around in the spaces.

I especially loved how Mark Lee Ping-bin followed the characters in circles and traced out the cinematic spaces as they spoke convoluted conversations (eg. Naoko telling Watanabe of her sexual incompetence, Midori bustling in and out of the spaces in her house as she talks about her dysfunctional family to Watanabe), the camera movements paralleled the conversations, they seem to point to somewhere, yet at the same time, they lead to nowhere.

Another favourite scene of mine would be when Watanabe, upon hearing the news of Naoko’s suicide, sobbed his guts out along with the crashing waves. Instead of using dialogue or the sounds of heart wrenching cries to bring about Watanabe’s grief, the director subbed out any possible sounds and subbed the scene with loud and unpleasant string music. The sounds were chaotic, jarring and distressing, as how Watanabe’s inner world is – full of turmoil, pain and anguish.

The film moves at a slow pace, indulging in intricate details of visuals, music and stunning cinematography. However, as mentioned earlier, adaptations are bound to meet challenges. Having read the book halfway, I could understand what was happening in the movie despite the minimal narration presented, and my focus was on how the director outlined the story. Tran Anh Hung remained faithful to the novel, the key dialogues were exactly the same (I was still reading the novel while on my way to catch the movie, hence my memory was kind of fresh), but certain key points from the novel were left out. Midori’s personality was not fully brought out in the film as compared to Naoko’s performance, her recited lines just felt out of place (her dialogue was supposed to be playfully flirtatious but I suppose the lack of screen time for Midori resulted in a queer performance); Reiko’s reason for her sexual encounter with Watanabe was not explained (the bond between Watanabe and Reiko played a crucial role in helping Watanabe realise his feelings towards Midori yet this was not shown in the film); Watanabe’s emotional epiphanies were a little abrupt (his declaration of love towards Midori albeit Naoko being his main worry but there was not much effort in the movie to show how this stream of feelings flow, the book had many subplots which traced and built up Watanabe’s realisations of his feelings towards Midori). Thus, this poses a question, if I did not had any knowledge of the book, would I still be able to understand the movie?

My two friends who accompanied me for the movie made up an interesting contrast – one is a loyal Haruki Murakami fan who can memorise almost the whole of Norwegian Wood, the other have not read the book yet and barely read any of the author’s works. The two of them were disappointed over how the movie turned out, the Murakami fan was fuming mad over the lack of clear narration “the director just totally assumed everyone would have read the book and ruined how the novel should be!”, the other was utterly disturbed by the frequent unexplained sex scenes “everyone in the movie just looked like some sex-crazed maniacs?!”. I was tickled by their responses!

“Great novels do not make great movies” – this is a musing I read somewhere from the net, but I believe that as long as one is able to keep an open mind and embrace all forms of art expressions, there is always the essence of the work to be seen. In Norwegian Wood’s case, the value and the essence of Tran Anh Hung’s style was certainly seen…or at least, it was seen by me.

References:
Norwegian Wood Review – Love Film . Com
Review: NORWEGIAN WOOD – A Handsomely Made Failure
Venice Film Festival Review
Norwegian Wood (2010) Time Out London
Mark Lee Ping-Bin list of works