On Norwegian Wood Film

When I first watched the film adaptation, I felt it's a strange film. I thought the film will help me understand the book, but I was very wrong. Now having read the book, I realize the film itself is confusing. First, some of the scenes move too fast without serving much purposes. For example, the scene where Storm Trooper asks Toru to get up and exercise with him is too short to develop Storm Trooper as a character. If I'm not mistaken, this scene is not from the book. Forcing Toru to do what he enjoys doing makes Storm Trooper appear annoying, which is very different from Murakami's portrayal. A better depiction of Storms Trooper can be showing his unwillingness to skip the jumping part of his morning exercise to show his stubbornness. The scene is followed by an even shorter scene of Toru swimming in the pool. I would argue this scene is significant in terms of contrasting with the previous pool scene with Naoko and Kizuki, but it's too fleeting to make a meaningful connection, especially without any dialogue or monologue. I would argue that a lot of silent scenes are empty and unnecessary, not developing characters or moving the plot forward.

With that being said, however, some of the shots are worth exploring. For example, the shot at 38 minutes when Toru receives Naoko's letter and goes up the stairs, the spinning of the staircase scene demonstrates Toru's excitement, and it gives the audience context of how Toru feels about Naoko.

I understand it is difficult to make a film out of Norwegian Wood because of Boku's rich internal dialogue. The scene where Boku and Midori kiss on the balcony with Midori is a good example to illustrate this point. The movie moves on without Boku's monologue about his feeling of the kiss, which is important to show how Boku feels toward Midori and the two characters' development later. Anyways, I would not recommend this film, whether you read the book or not.

-- Xiaoya