I found the Norwegian Wood movie online, and my thoughts lean towards the negative. Starting with my positive notes, I found the imagery and the general lighting/composition/staging beautiful, and I think they did a great job with that (especially the scenes in nature). Some scenes I thought were well done were the scene with Midori and Toru in the snow towards the end (to agree with Pilar's point) and the scene with Hatsumi and Toru in the car (though I think it could've been longer and drawn from the novel more). So for me, these raw moments truly made the movie worthwhile for me.
Despite these scenes, I really couldn't get past the music present throughout the movie. I am not a huge fan of classical music in general (sorry Rysen) but I am not ignorant to the effect that music can have in framing a scene. Despite this, the harsh/ dramatic violin throughout the entire movie really drowned out some of the scenes. I think they definitely missed the mark on this. After the scene where it's revealed that Naoko died, the movie moves into this surreal interlude where Toru is hopeless, sleeping outside by the beach. I think this scene in particular could've been done better. Why are we hearing this dramatic music as Toru is breaking down? What happened to men having emotions? In that sense the producers are literally taking a page from Murakami's book since his protagonists are cynical and tend to lack drive and emotion... and are maybe even toxically masculine? Regardless, this weird music ruined the movie for me. I even had to turn off volume during some of the scenes and rely solely on subtitles.
Max
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