Film Review: Madadayo (1993)

When an artist dies, particularly an artist who may have suspected that the end was near, there is a natural tendency to look closely at their last works in the hopes of finding some sort of statement about their life's work, if not life in general. After all, if it was one of their last chances to express something to the world, you would hope that they had something important to say. This tends to be easier in some cases than in others. It doesn't take an incredibly keen analytical mind to read the final Peanuts strip or listen to In Utero to figure out that Charles Schultz was devastated by his inability to continue his life's work and that Kurt Cobain was having a bit of a bad time. Yet even in instances where death was not imminent, there is something significant about an artist's last flourish, whether it is intentional or not.

Film Review: Norwegian Wood (2010)

Of the works of Japanese author Haruki Murakami, his 1987 novel Norwegian Wood is the most obvious choice for a cinematic adaptation. Partly based on Murakami's time as a student, it follows Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama), a young Literature student whose best friend Kizuki commits suicide. The trauma of this event leads Watanabe to fall in love with Kizuki's emotionally fragile girlfriend Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi) at around the same time as he develops feelings for a fellow student named Midora (Kizo Mizuhara) and has to decide what he wants from these two women.