Adapted from Haruki Murakami’s 1987 best-selling but complex novel about forbidden love, despair and vinyl records (amongst other things), Norwegian Wood is a sensitive tale of love and loss set in late 1960s Tokyo. 19 year-old student Toru is consumed by grief following his best friend’s suicide. When he meets his friend’s former girlfriend Naoko, he’s drawn to her troubled sadness and gradually falls in love with her. Their burgeoning romance is often painful and when Toru meets a new love, he must choose between the two women.
Franco-Vietnamese film-maker Tran Anh Hung does wonders in capturing the essence of the source material.