Tony Takitani pulls on your tearducts throughout. This film is thought provoking and extremely morose. The amount of sympathy you feel for Tony's plight is unrivaled in the masterful storytelling. If you have ever lost someone you love this movie will leave reliving those terrible times and the way one tries to cope with all they know how to do. Tony handles things definitly differently than most, but it is still quite an enthralling curious tale of a man dealing with the loss of his wife.

A beautiful blend of literature and cinema. Ideas that should have come off as too gimmicky -- actors in multiple roles, characters finishing the narrator's sentences, the constant left-to-right pans -- didn't bother me at all. In fact I very much enjoyed the way the narration was done. Comparisons to Vertigo are rather unwarranted, it's really only similar in one respect. What's especially remarkable about this movie is the overwhelming aura of sadness... almost unbearable sadness.

Initially this seemed very dull, with its sombre muted colours and lack of dialogue or character interaction. Eventually, I could see the logic behind these choices: Ichikawa wanted to bring Murakami's beautiful prose to the screen unaltered, hence the total reliance on voiceover while the visuals unfold gently in the background. It worked, but for me it defeats the point of film-making; why not stick to making audiobooks if you have nothing to express visually? Different, and fortunately short.

Beautiful and touching, if a little slow and with a heavy melancholy

The ideas and story are sound but everything else from the narration to the piano score feels like it is trying too hard to evoke emotions or is really not strong enough to do so. Maybe the high amount of praise it had going to view it does not help, but it lacks the beauty that the story feels like it has; if I was to go to read the original Haruki Murakami short, would I enjoy the film more, or would it lead to me finding the adaptation inadequate?

It's definitely got that lonely, dreamlike melancholy of Murakami's work, a feeling it takes great lengths to evoke through unconventional narrative techniques and setting and atmosphere, rather than action. The downside is it can be easy for your attention to wander, which is a shame because it's mostly quite beautiful and very affecting.

rewatch, I guess!

kamera soldan saga dogru kayarken satirlar arasinda dolasiyormus hissi veren, anlatim teknigiyle edebiyatin sinemayla basarili bir harmanlanmasini andiran sade bir hikaye.

Okay, so it's definitely slow and uneventful, but its the mood that makes it worthwhile. It has a definite Murakami feel to it, and I think it was an extremely well done adaptation, even if it wasn't the most riveting thing to watch.

A good movie. I love the fact that the camera angles were always really well framed, very geometric. Japanese drama is always good, so Jun Ichikawa took in problems from Japanese society and applied them in the movie. Touching. Overall 74.

Quiet and slow "Tony Takitani" gets you thinking about human nature and needs. This movie is destined to feel, not watch. At the beginning, the amount of narration makes you wonder when actors will start saying something, but next thing you know, it feels very natural. You won't see much action there. Carefully planned shots and words are supposed to make you think and feel, to make you compassionate, not excited.

"Ichikawa evokes the heady and suffocating effect of the past playing irrevocable catch-up with itself." - Ed Gonzalez