NORWEGIAN WOOD (Tran Anh Hung). 133 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (March 2). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NNNN
Much like the Beatles song that serves as its melancholy trigger, Tran Anh Hung’s Norwegian Wood is simple, spare and beautiful. Tran’s adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s 1987 novel is more interested in capturing the delicate alchemy of a young man’s romantic confusion than in relating a narrative. You don’t watch it so much as sink into it.
It’s the late 1960s, and Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama) is a student whose best friend, Kizuki (Kengo Kora), is dating Naoko (Babel’s Rinko Kikuchi). Kizuki’s departure brings Watanabe and Naoko together, sends her into inconsolable depression and eventually leads Watanabe to the sunny Midori (Kiko Mizuhara).
Tran isn’t after big emotional moments revelations come delicately, or even casually, filtered through the older Watanabe’s memory of himself and the others. This is above all the tale of a callow young man edging closer to understanding the way the world works – and coming to regret the choices he didn’t make.
