The Beautiful "Norwegian Wood"

"The young, soft and tender hearts hurt the most, and the pains are most beautiful...."
 

"Norwegian wood" tells you about this and I think, it is also the main aim of the director to want to reflect in this movie. "Norwegian wood" is based on Haruki Murakami's novel of the same name. Haruki Murakami is a very famous Japanese writer, whose style is described by some to be more of a surrealist, who often demonstrates a sense of philosophical perspectives on some of life's most concerned subject matter. Yet his portray of characters feel so "fragmented". It needs your close attentions to follow through and understand them in the end. It not necessarily is like a Thriller. It is just like a journey of the characters, which can be just as unexpected as anything. In this movie, it revolves the issue around sex, love and death. It is about two friends grieving over the death of a friend close to both of them. It seems logical as set the age of the characters to be late teen early twenty. When it hurts, that age hurts the most, when it's pain, it's felt the most. To add a sense of eroticism to the movie, the story relates the hurt and pain of losing a friend to the sense of losing a sexual pleasure, which obviously means a lot to the characters, especially when there is love involved.

Watanabe and Naoko cannot get over the death of their dear friend, Kizuki who killed himself and passed away.Kizuki and Naoko were closer, and only Watanabe is a good friend to both of them. Only till after the death of Kizuki, Watanabe then know what Kizuki meant to Naoko, in their sexual relationship. Naoko felt the emptiness and no fulfilment. She felt the pleasure, but she can't feel the love, and the one she loved is no longer around. The truth is she can't feel the same pleasure from Kizuki. Sounded complicated, but realistic issues facing lots of people, I am sure. It's heart-breaking as Watanabe fell in love with Naoko, and both were also grieving over the death of Kizuki.

Watanabe was also romantically involved with Midori, one of his University mate. Watanabe is attracted to Midori, but admitted his love for Naoko and he was open to Midori about it. I kind of like the scene each time Watanabe and Midori were together. Midori is more witty and sharp, not as dark and depressed as Naoko. In the end, Naoko died too, and Watanabe was devastated. As is expected, in the end Naoko and Watanabe were get together as a couple, or at least is implied by the end of the movie.

A movie critic from the Telegraph claimed that the movie is a bit of a summary of Murakami’s book. I obviously didn't get to read the novel, but I am a little disappointed by the ending. I would have thought for a movie like this, the ending should be an open ending. One can only draw about one's life's philosophical thoughts when reflecting one's past. It is often good to move forward, like what the end of the movie had implied, but it reduced the depth of the story to some extent. However, it all makes sense, as the characters are in their late teens, and it is only natural they move on to the next phase of their life. Unless the movie is about "reflecting the past", which does not seem to be the case.
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I still like this movie for its attempt to breach the gap of grieving death, sexual pleasure and love. Another movie of a similar theme recently that I had watched is "love and other drugs", which I equally liked, but that was a lot more realistic and pragmatic, and with good acting too. I cannot compared both movie, as "Norwegian Wood" is restrained by Murakami's style, but "love and other drugs" is not. Perhaps next time I will compare the theme of "sex and love" in both movies, putting the author's styles in both books aside. That will be interesting.