Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman review: a Murakami movie for hardcore fans

You don’t need to know anything about best-selling author Haruki Murakami to enjoy the new animated movie. Blind Willow, Sleeping Womanadapting his work.

Murakami is known for being prolific, both in terms of volume and raw page count for each book. His writing is chock-full of references to mid-20th century pop culture, Japanese history, jazz, Beatles traits, and male sexual identity. On the other hand, film adaptations of his writings are often more contained and accessible. Ultimately, it is an independent work by an individual creator.

people who stream blind willow It’s whimsical, and you get another solid example of the kind of Western adult animation that until recently couldn’t consistently find investment, even from indie studios. blind willow sitting side by side with a movie like run away, towerand Anomalysawhich has the most in common with the last film, but with some heady dialogue about the mundaneness of adult life, some nudity, and a splash or two of weird gore.

But if you know Mr. Murakami, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman It’s like a once-in-a-generation mashup event. This is not a Murakami movie.this is of Murakami movie.

When Murakami published an anthology Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman In 2006, he wrote in the foreword that it was his “first real collection of short stories”. Murakami has been publishing for 20 years, including a critically acclaimed set of short stories in 2002. after the earthquakebut to him earthquake It was “something like a concept album”. Blind Willow, Sleeping Womanby comparison, captures the breadth and depth of his craft, spanning 24 stories written over the years. There wasn’t even a ration. It was literature as a grab bag.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Womanthe 2023 film of the same name, inexplicably isn’t it Adapted from a collection of short stories.Instead, the French composer and director Pierre Feldes We use it to restate the eponymous purpose of assembling a tasting menu of Murakami’s creations for a new generation. Whereas a collection of short stories introduced readers to the author’s ever-growing literary catalog, the film is a starting point to rival the string of Murakami film adaptations sprawling across your favorite streaming service.

The film takes its name from Story Collection, but borrows mostly from other Murakami works. after the earthquake: “UFO in Kushiro” “Super Frog Saves Tokyo” In the former, Komura, a salesman in his thirties, volunteers to deliver a mysterious package after his wife goes missing. In the latter, Katagiri, a meek middle-aged office worker, is tasked from a human-sized frog with a mission to save Tokyo from an earthquake by battling giant worms. (This premise will sound familiar to fans of Japanese storytelling and those who have seen the recently released Makoto Shinkai film. Sparrow.)

Feldes, on a parallel journey, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman —like when a conversation devolves into a summary of the collection’s masterpieces. But more surprisingly, Foldes delves further into Murakami’s bibliography, integrating short stories, novels, and everything in between.

Image: Zeitgeist Films

Image: Zeitgeist Films

This wonderful hodgepodge of prose can be both concrete and literal. For example, when Komura is looking for a lost cat, wind-up bird chronicle and stay for a while. His Földes, who wrote and directed the film and also contributed to the art direction, sound department, score, and voice acting of the frog, his Földes sees his characters move from one story to another, and also to art. Allows you to drift in the opposite direction. The effect is like someone who consumed them all decades ago summed up Murakami’s story, and now can’t remember the difference between one story and another.

When this method works (as it often does), Ferdes reveals how Murakami’s habits complement each other and how their narrative rhythms echo decades of writing. It helps you understand who you are. In the Murakami universe, depressed and anxious people sober up only at the darkest points of the night when others are asleep and time seems to stand still. I have beer.

Földes also echoes Murakami’s love of boundary space. Invisible ghosts come to life in this film. Maybe they died in a recent natural disaster, unaware of their destiny, unwittingly repeating their nauseous days. yeah. Maybe there is no difference. And like Murakami’s good tales, Feldes interprets this existential as his two unlikely friends lounging on an abandoned estate, listening to classical music on the radio, as a thunderstorm rolls in. Anxiety is accentuated with beautiful and profound speckles.

However, sometimes the story doesn’t add up. Or maybe it’s too well put together. In these moments, the film feels like a parody of Murakami, with missing cats, talking animals, a fixation on the point where the mediocrity meets the surreal, and a loser man putting up a magnetic sexual charge for the sake of the beautiful. Packed with strange abilities to emit. ,young woman.

Image: Zeitgeist Films

Image: Zeitgeist Films

You hear what sounds like two colleagues chatting at a bar. […] Sometimes a wife needs a good fuck. ’ We see flashes of sexual fantasy devolve into sexual violence in an instant. Murakami’s willingness to apply eroticism to the sexual frustration of free men positioned him as a daring literary figure. But these habits felt more and more like crutches in his books. You may find the presentation of the ideas here fresher than the overwhelmed longtime reader.

The end result is watching a talented artist try to catch another person’s soul, like trying to catch a swarm of gnats in a net. As many as jumping around in a hole.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman This is Murakami’s fourth movie after five years. Two of those movies— combustion and please drive my car — will be remembered as some of the best films of the decade. They use the author’s text as a starting point and reach for something that is as good, if not better, than the original material.

But Földes rather feels like it’s not aiming to go anywhere in particular. He enjoys Murakami’s work and hopes you do too. We hear a lot of critical rhetoric these days about “movies made for fans.” But this is a fan-made movie. The artist was given the liberty to explore, restore, and lightly critique a collection of writings that seemed to haunt him like every ghost walking the streets—not threatening, but never disappearing. It’s a terribly beautiful (or beautifully dark) world that Földes has created, from his writing and direction to his character designs and score.

Like the men at the center of the story, the film can’t help but ask.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman make American debut at New York Film Forum April 14th.