Thoughts on Norwegian Wood: The Movie

Even though we only watched 50 minutes of the Norwegian Wood movie in class, there were many things that I noticed that came across as interesting. First, the beginning felt more like a montage rather than a movie where we are just hit with scenes after scene after scene. We go from Toru, Naoko, and Kizuki, to Toru and Kizuki's pool game, to Kizuki's suicide all within a matter of 5 minutes. This feeling continues throughout the movie where it seems like a bunch of information that is barely held together is just thrown at the audience. For example, Stormtrooper plays a much lesser role in the movie, as we only see him twice before he leaves and also never get to hear his name. The same goes for Nagasawa. We don't get the scene where he finds Toru reading the Great Gatsby and how that moment kick started their friendship. All we see is that the two of them are already friends. This opening felt rather rushed and if we hadn't read the book in class, I would not have been able to understand what was happening. Many people say to read the book instead of watching the movie, but for Norwegian Wood it is a necessity. 

There were other parts that were either completely skipped over, or just different from the book. The meeting with Midori again seems rushed, but then we cut straight to when they meet up after she ghosted him at lunch, which then cuts straight into when she invites him over for food. Similarly, he gives her pink and white flowers in the movie while in the book he gives her daffodils.

I also noticed how important of a role music plays in the film. Almost every scene was set to some background track, ambient noise, or the shouts of the student protest. To me, this seems like a good way to captivate Murakami's obsession with music from his novels. While reading, it can be hard to visualize what a mentioned song is if you've never heard it before and no one is going to take the time to look each song up and listen to them before getting back into reading. Therefore I feel this element and the sound design are one of the more well executed aspects of the movie from the half we have seen so far. 

- Angus Black