DIFF 2010 - Norwegian Woods

Adapted from a novel by 'Murakami'; Norweigan woods is a classic in it's visualization and conceptualization of the movie. Excellent cinematography, very commendable screenplay, this is a movie that is tight and will keep you through the emotional drama ensuring that you feel the textual heights that were probably written. The directors language of story- telling marvels you and even though I havent read the book, I could tell from the few instances quoted by the director in the Q and A session, that the sensibility he described in the book, came out with magical colors on screen.

The one thing that the movie still struggles to break though, is the burden of adapting from a novel. Though wisely chosen and exhibited, for someone who hasnt read the book, the transitions seem abrupt, almost to suggest a past you missed a few pages back. There are a lot of suppositions especially through the movement from one phase of the story through the other, and as an audience you are left to judge the in-betweens. Secondly, the characters as would have probably been imagined, were not distinct or clear at all. The female protagonists needed to have strong identifiably opposing personalities, which was lacking. Also the enormous sexual overtones of the novel, which were adapted in chosen bits in the movie, seemed disconnected or unresolved and the actors looked as clueless as the audience about their significance. Having said that, I believe with the background of the novel, this has got to be exceptionally well executed cinema derived from a text.

9:00pm, 16.12.10 MOE 2