This Japanese adaptation of Haruki Murakami's bestseller is gorgeous and sensual, says Peter Bradshaw
Forbidden love is the sexiest kind, and love of death the most forbidden kind, in this emoish erotic tragedy from Franco-Vietnamese film-maker Tran Anh Hung, based on the bestselling 1987 novel by Haruki Murakami.
It is set in Tokyo in the late 1960s – a world of student dorms, going for walks, getting letters from your girlfriend, sitting in your student room looking at LP sleeves while the record is playing; it's a world of sexual and romantic excitement that is a cousin to widespread political unrest. Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama) is a student who begins a relationship with Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi), a beautiful, delicate young woman whom he knew a year before, in high school. But while Watanabe works towards his degree, Naoko is in a remote psychological facility, suffering from a breakdown, able to receive Watanabe only infrequently as a visitor.
What binds them together – in a dark ecstasy of despair – is an inexpressibly painful event in their past, a terrible, mutual loss. It is holding them back in life, and threatens to smother and paralyse them. But Watanabe and Naoko find themselves trying to forge a conjugal, sacramental bond with this past and, perhaps, with death itself. Attempting to fall in love with each other, as damaged souls, is a way of giving a narrative purpose and a moral grandeur to their lives, which another, more uncomplicated kind of dating could not possibly achieve. Their relationship almost attains the status of a suicide pact in which both partners are left alive.
As if the situation were not complicated enough, Watanabe also finds himself attracted to Midori (Kiko Mizuhara), a smart, sexy, free-spirited girl on campus who appears to represent a healthy and psychologically unencumbered future. However, Midori is cool, a little cruel – a flirt and a tease. She, too, has her secret world of pain. When she suffers a loss, she demands that Watanabe take her to a porn film to dull the pain. But for Watanabe, perhaps, this is not exactly the point. The pain is the porn.
This movie is gorgeously photographed by Ping Bin Lee, and has a plangent, keening orchestral score by Jonny Greenwood. It rewards attention with a very sensual experience, although there might be some who, understandably, find it indulgent. Having watched it now a second time since its premiere at last year's Venice film festival, I find the film that came into my mind – apart of course from Twilight – was Wong Kar-Wai's romantic classic In the Mood for Love (which Ping Bin Lee also shot), about two people drawn together by their respective partners' infidelities. That has the same tragedy, irony and romance which combine to create a doomy eroticism. Norwegian Wood ignites its own fierce, moth-attracting flame. [www.guardian.co.uk]
Jun 15, 2011
Norwegian Wood (2010) : Review
This Japanese adaptation of Haruki Murakami's bestseller is gorgeous and sensual, says Peter Bradshaw
Forbidden love is the sexiest kind, and love of death the most forbidden kind, in this emoish erotic tragedy from Franco-Vietnamese film-maker Tran Anh Hung, based on the bestselling 1987 novel by Haruki Murakami.
Jun 14, 2011
Il Postino (1994): The Postman
Mario Ruoppolo (Massimo Troisi) is the gentlest of men, a lonely soul resigned to the monotony of life on a quiet Italian island. All that changes with the arrival of Pablo Neruda (Philippe Noiret), who suddenly becomes the island's resident celebrity. Exiled from his native Chile for political reasons, Neruda has a transforming effect on the ruggedly beautiful setting where "The Postman" ("Il Postino") takes place. He becomes an unlikely friend to Mario, who blossoms so beautifully under Neruda's influence that he discovers the idea of poetry as if it were new.
Movies about Writers & Writing
Are you a writer, or anyone who likes writing? Here are ten films that have something real to say about what it means to write. These following list was listed by a member of Amazon.
1. Sylvia DVD ~ Gwyneth Paltrow
"about the lives of sylvia plath & ted hughes"
3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (79 customer reviews)
2. Il Postino DVD ~ Massimo Troisi
"Pablo Neruda"
4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (120 customer reviews)
Jun 10, 2011
On the Road (2011)
On the Road is a film adaptation of the Jack Kerouac novel of the same name directed by Walter Salles and starring Sam Riley as Sal Paradise and Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty. It is being produced by Francis Ford Coppola. Filming began on August 4, 2010, in Montreal, Canada, with a $25 million budget. The story is based on the years Kerouac spent traveling America in the 1940's with his friend Neal Cassady and several other figures who would go on to fame in their own right, including William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg.
Read More......Jun 8, 2011
I Am an S+M Writer
Based on a novel by Dan Oniroku, probably best known for Flower and Snake, I am an S&M writer tells the story of Kurosaki and his much younger wife Shizuko. Kurosaki, Osugi Ren, at one point during his writer career wrote a type of literature termed junbungaku, pure literature, which distinguished itself from taishibungaku, popular literature.
In Japanese terms Oe Kenzaburo would fall into the realm of pure literature while Haruki Murakami, although he straddles both types of literature because of the various themes in his body of work, would fall into popular literature.
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