John Lennon claimed to have no idea why he called his song Norwegian Wood, but it is not hard to see why Haruki Murakami chose it as the title of his novel (now also a movie).The ambiguities of the sexual encounter represented in the song illustrate how intimate relationships can often end up as power games where it is not always clear who is in charge.
“I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me” sings Lennon, immediately subverting the convention of the male as the one in control; significantly, in the end it is the woman who leaves him, not vice versa (“When I awoke, I was alone, this bird had flown”).
Murakami’s characters can mostly be defined by their sexual identity. At the heart of the novel is the tragedy of a woman, Naoko, who cannot come to terms with herself as a sexual being. In marked contrast, Nagasawa is a voracious womanizer who picks up girls for one-night stands.
The central character, Toru Watanabe, lies somewhere in between these two characters. He rejects shallow sexual encounters and learns to value trust and openness in his romantic relationships with Naoko, and later, Midori. “I try to lie as little as possible” he says.
Putting such complex ideas on-screen is a challenging and ultimately impossible task. However,French director Tran Anh Hung makes a brave attempt and thankfully focuses on the emotional depth of the story. On the official movie website , he says “I wanted to recreate the raw painfulness of fresh wounds” .
Not having been to Japan, I found that the movie gave me clear visual framework for the novel. It is helped by the fact that the cinematography of Mark Lee Ping Bin is exceptional. Equally stunning is Jonny Greenwood’s soundtrack which emphasises the underlying melancholy of the story. The addition of songs by Can is also an inspired move .
Tran Anh Hunghas remains faithful to Murakami’s story although condensing it into a two-hour movie means that some changes are inevitable. There’s no place for “Storm Trooper”, Toru’s obsessive dormitory roommate , or the vivid background story of Reiko Ishida , an inmate of the mountain asylum to which Naoko retreats.
These scenes would distract from the main story but cuts of this kind weaken the narrative and illustrate why rich and complex literary novels rarely make for great cinema. Sound and vision are no match for a voice as distinctive as Murakami’s but this movie is about as close as you will get.
