Review: Norwegian Wood

I have not seen either of filmmaker Anh Hung Tran’s famed works from the 1990s, The Scent of Green Papaya and Cyclo, but based on Norwegian Wood, I need to play catch-up very soon. Adapted from a novel by the legendary Haruki Murakami, whose work has long been considered un-filmable, the movie’s narrative isn’t the most cohesive, nor does it conjure up a conventional interest in the outcome. But viewed as a series of moments, which accumulate in intensity, Norwegian Wood is powerful and consuming.

Tran’s ability to immerse the viewer in a scene, so much so that you often feel as if you are one with the film, is evident from the beginning. Not ten minutes into Norwegian Wood, 17-year-old Kizuki (Kengo Kôra) commits suicide by car exhaust, in a sequence that pulls no punches. Tran and cinematographer Ping Bin Lee (In the Mood for Love) excel at conveying claustrophobia, boxing the characters in with compositions that remain stationary for extended periods of time, only to finally move with great precision. The aesthetic beauty of the shots, fused perfectly with Johnny Greenwood’s haunting score, is superseded only by the emotional chaos housed within them.

Kizuki’s suicide is only the beginning of the story of Watanabe (Ken’ichi Matsuyama), Kizuki’s childhood best friend, who narrates as if looking back. After enrolling in college in Tokyo, Watanabe encounters Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi), Kizuki’s girlfriend, who is even more devastated over the loss than he is. They begin an intimate relationship of their own, but it far from healthy, steeped in their respective feelings of guilt and Naoko’s vulnerability. Even more so than that of the breathless suicide scene, the camerawork during Watanabe and Naoko’s first sexual experience is mind-blowing in its simultaneous formal command and emotional rawness.

Watanabe’s story complicates even further when Naoko’s mental state becomes so fragile that she must leave for a sanatorium, while he enters another complicated relationship with classmate Midori (Kiko Mizuhara). Compelling as the film’s style is, the acting becomes the standout from this point on. Watanabe proves something of an enigma, but actor Matsuyama expertly plays every layer that the viewer peels back. And Kikuchi, who seemingly vanished after her critically acclaimed performances in Babel and The Brothers Bloom, is even more impressive, embodying mental illness and depression in a way that feels devastatingly authentic.

That said, Norwegian Wood is always so caught up in the emotions from scene to scene–the way the audience connects with the characters on an intimate level–that it ultimately lacks a clear thesis. The severity of the emotions mounts, reaching a crescendo that certainly feels profound, but what Tran wants the film to say on an external level (if anything) is unclear. Furthermore, I’m all for individual interpretation, but Tran doesn’t even leave viewers much to interpret; instead, he gives us an experience that is stimulating, but not particularly thought-provoking. That is not to say that said experience is not an accomplishment unto its own–Ping Bin’s cinematography and Kikuchi’s performance represent the best of the year in their respective categories–but rather that the whole of Norwegian Wood never quite matches up to the greatness of its individual elements.

* * *

Norwegian Wood (2012, Japan). Originally reviewed at the 2011 San Diego Asian Film Festival (10.25.2011). Produced by Satoshi Fukushima, Joe Ikeda, Chihiro Kameyama, Kaoru Matsuzaki, Mioko Ogawa, Shinji Ogawa, Keizo Shukuzaki, and Masao Teshima. Directed and written for the screen by Anh Hung Tran, based on the novel by Haruki Murakami. Starring Rinko Kikuchi, Ken’ichi Matsuyama, Kiko Mizuhara, Tetsuji Tamayama, Kengo Kôra, and Eriko Hatsune. Distributed by Red Flag Releasing. Not rated, with a running time of 133 minutes.