Norwegian Wood movie introduction

"Norwegian Wood" is a movie released in Japan in 2010. The film tells the story of the love-hate entanglement between college student Watanabe and Naoko, Midoriko and others. The following is what I have compiled for your reference!

Basic information about the Norwegian Wood movie

"Norwegian Wood" is a movie released in Japan in 2010, adapted from Murakami "Norwegian Wood", based on Haruki's novel of the same name, is directed by Chen Yingxiong and written by Haruki Murakami himself. It stars Kenichi Matsuyama, Rinko Kikuchi and Kiko Mizuhara.

The film tells the story of the love-hate entanglement between college student Watanabe and Naoko, Midori and others. It was released in Japan on December 11, 2010.

In 2011, the film won the Best Cinematography Award at the 5th Asian Film Awards and was shortlisted for the Golden Lion Award at the 67th Venice Film Festival.

Norwegian Wood movie plot synopsis

With the shadow of his friend Kizuki committing suicide, Watanabe entered a university in Tokyo after graduating from high school and started a new life in a city with no acquaintances. Life. Life in Tokyo is going smoothly but something seems to be missing.

On this day, Watanabe reunited with Naoko by chance. Naoko is Kizuki's girlfriend. Watanabe and Naoko, who only have Kizuki as a friend, are also familiar with each other, and the three of them used to play together. Watanabe and Naoko, who share the same disease, are getting closer and closer, and Watanabe falls in love with Naoko, who has a pair of clear eyes. On Naoko's twentieth birthday, the two spent a night together. However, the deeper Watanabe's feelings become, the stronger Naoko's sense of loss becomes. In the end, Naoko left without saying goodbye and moved into a nursing home in Kyoto.

Watanabe met Midori in college, a cute girl who looked like a small animal returning to the earth in early spring. Because he could not see Naoko, whom he missed deeply, Watanabe began to have frequent contact with Midori, who was completely different from Naoko. Midoriko invited Watanabe to her house for dinner, and the two kissed each other naturally. It was a gentle and peaceful kiss that didn't know where to go.

Soon after, Watanabe received a letter from Naoko. He visits Naoko in the nursing home. Naoko's roommate Reiko is playing the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" on the guitar, which is Naoko's favorite song.

“When I heard this song, I felt like I was lost in the jungle. I don’t know why. I felt like I was alone, cold and dark, and no one came to save me, but it was true. It is indeed my favorite song."

Naoko always sheds tears when she hears "Norwegian Wood" and says, "It doesn't matter as long as Watanabe is here," but she still can't stop the flow of tears. tears.

Behind-the-scenes footage of the movie "Norwegian Wood"

1. The theme song of the film is "Norwegian Wood" sung by the Beatles. This song has extraordinary significance for both the original novel and the film. The film producer started negotiating with the copyright owner of the song very early, but there was still no agreement until the filming of the film was completed. Producer Shinji Ogawa even considered using a cover version. In the end, after more than a year of unremitting efforts by Xiaochuan and Chen Yingxiong, the license was finally obtained.

2. Haruki Murakami participated in the revision of the film’s script. For example, when Watanabe celebrated Naoko's birthday, Naoko said, "It would be great if people could always linger between the ages of eighteen and nineteen." This line was written by Murakami.

3. The first public screening of the movie "Norwegian Wood" is scheduled to be held at the Okuma Lecture Hall of Waseda University. Waseda University is Haruki Murakami's alma mater and one of the filming locations for the film.

4. Kenichi Matsuyama’s first impression of Kiko Mizuhara was that she didn’t look much like Midori because Mizuhara had waist-length hair at the time. Later, in order to match Midori's look, Suwon cut off her long hair that she was proud of.

5. Naoko confiding her past to Watanabe on the grassland is a highlight of the film. The film crew laid a 120-meter-long track on the grassland and used a camera to follow the two people walking side by side. This five-minute and six-second scene was shot in one shot.

6. While filming a certain dining scene, Kenichi Matsuyama ate twenty eggs over and over again.

7. When the film was released in mainland China, some pornographic scenes in the film were deleted.

Review of the Norwegian Forest movie

Positive point of view

After using a few shots at the beginning to pave the way for Kizuki and Naoko's love affair, we directly entered Kizuki process of suicide. The exact reproduction of Kizuki's suicide process in the original work brings the audience into an invisible atmosphere of heaviness, hesitation and depression. In the roaring car engine, it seems that they have entered a world of fear with the Watanabes in the film. and a world of confusion.

Although compared with the smooth storytelling of the original work, the film gives the impression that the story lacks a sense of integrity. After some scenes were deleted due to censorship reasons, the various behavioral motivations of the characters in the story made it even more difficult to watch. Audiences who have not read the original work will find it difficult to understand. However, Chen Yingxiong is Chen Yingxiong after all, and it makes sense for Haruki Murakami to choose him among so many directors to adapt his works. Chen Yingxiong captured several essences of the original work to interpret Murakami's story.

When Watanabe ran across the corridor, the blurred yellowish light flowed over and over with the fluttering curtains, and the entire scene almost became a painting, breathtakingly beautiful.

Chen Yingxiong's consistent fascination and emphasis on color is fully reflected in this film. The use of large green areas highlights his consistent image characteristics since "The Taste of Green Papaya" and is also a good continuation of the director's own style. . Many of the shots in forests and wilderness in the film have a strong sense of beauty, and some can even be used directly as desktops. For example, the scene in the film where Watanabe and Naoko are lying in a field near a nursing home is stunning. Coupled with Chen Yingxiong's almost demanding filming method for his works, the film is quite excellent in creating the atmosphere of the era and setting the space, and well displays the characteristics of the late 1960s set in the original work. This is a prominent manifestation of the overall exquisite style of the film, and is also an important weight to guide the audience into deep nostalgia.

After Kizuki committed suicide, Watanabe and Naoko left their original city and went to another unfamiliar city. After the two reunited, they began to fall in love until Naoko's birthday. . Perhaps due to the deletions, this erotic drama, which unfolds slowly on a blue rainy night with the sound of rain and Naoko's crying *** as the background "music", is performed in an appropriately youthful and innocent way.

Naoko has been admitted to a nursing home since that time. The filming of several scenes where Watanabe visits Naoko in the nursing home is almost comparable to Zhang Yimou, stretching the lyrical tension of the scenery to the extreme: the vast expanses of dazzling green in the valley of the nursing home, the forest shrouded in light mist, and the snow all over the mountains in winter. , the fluttering snowflakes all form beautiful pictures, allowing the audience to feel pure love and enter a beautiful world far away from the secular world.

The ending of the film is faithful to the original work with almost no changes, except for adding a line to Watanabe: "The seasons change, and the distance between me and the deceased also widens dramatically. Kizuki is still seventeen Even though he is twenty-one years old, Naoko will remain twenty-one forever." It would be even better if we use the words from Murakami's original work: "We are living, and the only thing we have to consider is how to survive."

The curtain is slowly closing on some people’s lives, and the curtain is also slowly closing on some dramas. "Norwegian Wood" is a barely successful adaptation, albeit with many regrets. Phoenix Entertainment Review

Opposite Views

As soon as the actor appears, Rinko Kikuchi plays Naoko, although she has the head of a clear noodle student, but she has mature eyes, obvious big eye bags and a tough face. The lines are not at all the natural and elegant Naoko described by Murakami. In the original work, Naoko is always quiet and shy even though she has been suffering from mental illness. The Naoko adapted by Chen Yingxiong has become a crazy woman running and screaming in the wilderness in the beautiful picture, resulting in Naoko not yet He was so crazy that he committed suicide, which almost caused the audience in front of the screen to have a nervous breakdown.

The other protagonist in the original work, Midori, has also been changed beyond recognition. Not only is the actor's image far removed from Murakami's Midori, but his personality is also completely different. Midori was originally a carefree girl who didn't care about anything, but in the film she got angry and ignored Watanabe because of his words. Perhaps Chen Yingxiong successfully filmed Naoko and Watanabe's sex scene in the rain, and then adapted the plot of Watanabe going to Midoriko's house for dinner, and the two of them suddenly kissing while eating, singing and watching the fire. Chatting in the rain.

After Naoko committed suicide, Watanabe wandered to the beach. In the film, a large number of shots of rough waves and the sound of waves, as well as Watanabe’s roaring and crying were used to express Watanabe’s mood, which was omitted. In the original work, Watanabe met a fisherman at the beach. When the fisherman invited him to eat and drink, he repeated that the food he had eaten for the past few days was "bread, dry cheese, tomatoes, and chocolate." This lacked the mechanical repetition and repetition that Murakami used in the original work. The deeper pain that numbness expresses.

The director also used too little ink on Reiko in the film. As a somewhat autistic, melancholic and confused adolescent boy, Watanabe has been looking for the answer to love. He experienced the suicide of his friend and was hiking around at a loss. In the end, Reiko had a heart-to-heart talk with him and encouraged him. During this period, Watanabe naturally and Reiko has sex, and finally mustered up the courage to start exploring life again. At the end of the whole story, the key sex scene between Reiko and Watanabe is unknown whether the director did not film it or it was deleted. This plot can express the youths such as Watanabe. The idea of ??exploring the meaning of existence through sex was a great pity that it was not filmed.

Perhaps due to cultural differences and differences in understanding of the work, the film ultimately failed to truly and intuitively express the essence of the original work. Haruki Murakami's original work focuses on the emotional entanglement of Watanabe, Naoko and Midoriko. It reveals a kind of youthful confusion and helplessness in a sentimental story. Although the film faithfully follows the narrative method of the original work, and the beginning is relatively good, the whole film becomes a bit confusing after the appearance of the character Midori. An important issue lies in the relationship between Watanabe and Watanabe throughout the film. The emotional expression entangled between Naoko and Midoriko is slightly superficial, making the most moving and sad emotions in this part of the original work convoluted and superficial, greatly weakening the power of the original work. In addition, due to the limited time for video works, the film failed to fully reflect the anxious, empty inner world, confusion, and fragile living conditions of urban people behind a common love story in the original work.

The extensive descriptions of "death" in the original work have more profound meanings. The deaths of characters such as Kizuki, Naoko, and Hatsumi also interpret a theme with fatalistic sadness and leaden gray, which is in line with the whole work. The melancholy and sentimental themes coincide. Although these plots are all shown in the movie, they only remain on a superficial pathos due to lack of sufficient foreshadowing and rendering, and their connection with the entire work is intentionally or unintentionally severed.

In the final analysis, it is actually the difference between literature and movies that is at play. As a sentimental love novel, Haruki Murakami’s work also includes topics about sex, death, life, society, etc. It also includes discussions on the confusion and living conditions of young people, and these things It is indeed not an easy task to present it completely in a movie of about 120 minutes. We see that Chen Yingxiong has maintained his consistent style while trying his best to be faithful to the original work, and strives to present a "Norwegian Wood" that he can express and understand. As far as the images in this film are concerned, it can be said to be one of the few beautiful films in recent years. In many cases, directors can only interpret original works according to their own understanding, but precisely because of this, it is difficult to meet everyone's requirements. There seems to always be an insurmountable gap between literature and images.

NetEase Entertainment Review