An elegant adaptation of Murakami’s novel as Toru Watanbe reflects on events from 20 years earlier and his love for Naoko.
When best friend Kizuki commits suicide, Toru (Ken’ichi Matsuyama – Satoshi: A Move For Tomorrow, Death Note) puts as much distance as possible between him and home, enrolling at university in Tokyo. Something of a loner, he unexpectedly bumps into Kizuki’s former girlfriend, Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi – Babel, Pacific Rim). Slowly, a friendship evolves, but an emotionally fragile Naoko is sent away by her family to a distant sanatorium. With letters and the occasional visit, Toru builds his life around her eventual return.
Director Trần Anh Hùng (The Scent of a Green Papaya, The Pot au Feu) looks to the nostalgia of memory in his adaptation, choosing to reduce the nuances of the novel in favour of a more focussed moment between the two friends. The result is a stately melancholy but fractured in its telling as everything else is consigned to the periphery.
Rating: 58%
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