A substantial portion of my body is covered in tattoos, the first two of which were lines from Haruki Murakami novels. What I’m trying to say is that I’m predisposed to like Norwegian Wood, the new film adaptation of Murakami’s 1987 book by the same name. When I first heard about the project a couple of years ago my initial reaction was excitement, followed shortly by serious concern about how director Tran Anh Hung would capture the subtle strangeness inherent in Murakami’s writing. His stories have a unique tone and feel that I wasn’t sure would translate well to the big screen.

Here’s where this review gets interesting. The Seattle International Film Festival press screening for Norwegian Wood had a slight, we’ll call it a hiccup. See, Norwegian Wood is a Japanese movie, which you would be correct to assume means that it is in Japanese. Here’s the problem, the print at SIFF didn’t have any subtitles. You can see how that might be an issue.

After that fact was discovered, most of the theater cleared out, muttering the entire way. But I figured, hell, I’d already taken the bus to the theater downtown, where there is nothing particularly interesting to do, and if I watched Crocodile Jones, Son of Indiana Dundee with no subtitles, I can sure as hell watch this. Anyway, Norwegian Wood is a quiet, subdued story. There’s not a lot of dialogue to begin with, so, what the hell.

Now, the movie 133 minutes long, and I assumed I’d have to pee or something in the middle, and told myself I’d just leave then. Then a funny thing happened. As the remaining crowd dwindled even further, until there were only a dozen or so of us left in the theater, including a guy from Japan who was laughing his ass off at us, I discovered that even though I don’t speak a lick of Japanese, I was completely hooked. Sure I may have missed names and places and details, but I got the main idea, and that’s enough to really enjoy the film.

Norwegian Wood the movie does an incredible job of capturing the atmosphere of the source material. The story is an understated, beautifully strange, mediation on memory, sexuality and love, infused with a subtle melancholy. Even though nothing earth shattering happens, the story is, none-the-less, a tragedy. It is tender and hopeful and moving. Without the words to rely on, you are forced to lean on other cues and markers. You have to look at tone, delivery, expression, body language, framing, camera movement, color, music, and all of the other inconspicuous elements of film, to understand the action, and you appreciate it in an entirely different way. It is really a testament to the actors and filmmakers that I sat there perfectly content for more than two hours when I had no idea what anyone was talking about. I can’t wait to watch it with subtitles.

If you’re into that sort of thing, here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the plot, questionable grammar and all:

Set in Tokyo in the late 1960s, Students around the world are uniting to overthrow the establishment and high school student Toru Watanabe is a quiet and serious young Tokyo college student whose personal life is in tumult. Toru loses his best friend Kizuki after he inexplicably commits suicide. Toru, now becomes uncertain as to how he should view life and as he looks for a new life, enters a university in Tokyo. By chance, during a walk in a park Toru meets Kizuki’s ex-girlfriend Naoko, and they grow close since they both share the same loss but as they grow even closer, Naoko’s sense of loss also grows. At heart, Toru is deeply devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman.

After Naoko’s 20th birthday, which she shares with Toru, she withdraws from the world and leaves for a sanitarium in a remote forest setting near Kyoto to regain some emotional stability. Toru is devastated by the situation, as he still has deep feelings for Naoko, but she is unable to reciprocate. He also lives with the influence of death everywhere, while Naoko feels as if some integral part of her has been permanently lost. He continues with his studies, and during the spring semester meets an attractive girl and fellow student Midori—outgoing, vivacious, supremely self-confident—who is everything that Naoko isn’t. The story then follows Toru as he is torn between the two women in his life and he must choose between his past and his future.

The PR department at SIFF sent out an email reassuring everyone that when they actually screen Norwegian Wood for the public, it will have English subtitles.