Tran Anh Hung (Cyclo, Vertical Ray of the Sun) makes movies that engage all five senses. His debut feature film, The Scent of Green Papaya, was one of the most critically acclaimed films of 1993, winning the Camera D’Or at Cannes and an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language film. Its rich, evocative imagery marked the arrival of an auteur with a truly unique worldview.
His latest film, Norwegian Wood (released in Australia on October 6th), is also his first screenplay based on another’s work. That this work is also the much loved and allegedly unadaptable novel from revered Japanese author Haruki Murakami has not fazed the quietly articulate and French accented filmmaker. Nor has having to direct the project in a language he does not speak. Sean Rom spoke to Tran Anh Hung about these challenges, his filmmaking process and how he gets those beautiful, indelible images up on the screen.
What attracted you to Norwegian Wood?
The story and the characters. The book suggested to me a good movie, a challenge, something difficult to make. The feeling of intimacy that I had while I was reading the book and also all these poetical ramifications that I felt…I wanted to put it in a movie. It’s the only way to make it personal…is that you also have to express your emotion while reading the book. All this was really attractive to me.
Speaking of challenges, a lot of people say Murakami’s novels are “unadaptable” because they are so in the mind of their characters. How did you overcome this?
That aspect was difficult. That is why I needed to simplify a lot of things, get rid of a lot of details… I really needed to have one thread line with Watanabe’s character and we really needed to stay very close with what was going on in his mind. That was the only way for me to have this ‘internal feeling’ of the book.
In the novel, events are filtered through the voice of a 37-year-old Watanabe, while in the film events play out in the first person. Why the change?
If I kept the older Watanabe it would give me the structure of a movie with flashbacks. But this structure is not interesting because it is too well known. And it would give the audience the feeling like in all movies that have that kind of structure. Also when you are going back and forth like this, you need to show what happened in the past that changed the present time…that changed his [Watanabe’s] behaviour. But in the book there is nothing like that. So if you want to do it, then you need to create some other scenes in the present time. It is possible but it doesn’t make sense because…the book is so rich already and you have to get rid of things…and you are not going to add some other things! That is why I didn’t keep it because it is not really interesting. I prefer to show the time where the wounds appear…
To give a sense of immediacy to the story?
Yes, more close to what happened in the past.
It’s funny that you say that because watching the movie, I felt like I was shifting through the memories of the protagonists. Was that deliberate?
You are the first one to ask me this question. It was something that is really difficult to achieve because you show the present time but in the texture somehow or in the way the action is shown in the movie it gives you the feeling of something that looks like a ‘dreamy state’. For instance when Watanabe went to the mountain to meet again with Naoko and the first time he sees her she was very close to him and talking with a low voice…that brings some very weird feelings, between reality and dream. And that kind of thing gives you that feeling of the past…somehow it could be something that remains in the memory of Watanabe later.
I tried to work out why it felt that way to me. But I couldn’t pin point one thing, it was a bit in the editing, a bit in the images…
Yes, also the scene where they are sitting in the middle of the tall grass with strong wind and they are talking about…you know… about if he has an erection, a hard on, you know? It is very soft and tender in their voice. It creates that kind of feeling of something…something like a dream.
On that note, I thought it was quite amazing how frank the film was about sexuality and talking about sex and showing sex. Not in a clinical or pornographic way but in an honest and sensual way. Was that a challenge?
It was a real issue of course; how to show all these lovemaking scenes. It was beautiful in the book. So I had to give justice to it somehow. But it’s more complicated to show the lovemaking scenes because it has to do with nudity. When I see a scene of nudity on the screen they always frame it in a certain way that something hides something. So when you do that kind of frame it doesn’t look innocent anymore. It looks too calculated, and then you lose the feeling of innocence; you lose the feeling of something that is genuine. That is why I prefer to get rid of this. And what helped me in the story is that each time they make love there are a lot of psychological problems. So I decided to frame the faces to be able to capture all the small details that happen in their mind. That is why the movie has this very specific way of showing all these scenes.
What were the challenges in directing in a language that you are not accustomed to? Because you don’t speak Japanese do you?
No. It was not a challenge because we work in the same language, which is the cinema language. When you go see a movie and you don’t speak the language, you can see immediately if it is good or not…the performances. So for me, it is the same. On the set when we are shooting we have the monitor…when the lines are not well delivered, I can see it immediately. But when it is good, then sometimes it happened that something bothered me and then we had to discuss it. And step-by-step they would try another take, and step-by-step I could erase this bad feeling that I had. It’s quite simple in a way. It was not a big problem. You can see in their eyes if it is good or not.
You weren’t initially convinced with Rinko Kikuchi (from Babel) to play Naoko and I was just wondering how she convinced you in the end?
She passed the audition. And when I saw it, it was amazing. Her face, it was so fragile. Then, after that I had to fit everything around her. She became very central.
She is 28, which is quite a lot older than the main character of the book. But you feel like she could be 18 in the film…
The actors need to be a little bit older than the characters because of the melancholic quality in the book and in the movie. You need someone who already experienced all of this and can give something back to what happened. It cannot be straight. It needs to be something with a souvenir…with a reflection about it.
Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi)
What is it about the quality of Jonny Greenwood’s music that convinced you that he was the right person to score Norwegian Wood?
I think his music is very profound and sensual and at the same time it has that kind of beauty that comes from something very dark. And it really fit the romantic side of the movie.
Your films are always so visually rich and so much thought seems to go into the composition of every frame. Watching Norwegian Wood it feels like the emotion is expressed primarily through the images and composition. I was wondering if you could describe some of your process and how you get what is in your head onto the screen?
What is important for me is that an image needs to be very sensual, very physical to the audience. I like the feeling that the audience would like to touch, would like to smell the picture. For me, beauty is something that should come from the fact that it is right in terms of feeling. When I’m making a frame I always measure it by listening to something that is physical and musical inside of me. A movement or something, I cannot describe it. But it is something that is really physical and when it fits it is good.
When you work with someone like Mark Lee [the director of photography]…He is so good! He can make any frame amazing. So you can accept everything …but no, you cannot. It can be beautifully shot but if it doesn’t fit what is inside of me than it is wrong and we have to break all the settings and start something else. And it takes time- two hours of setting lights. But we have to do it because it doesn’t fit something that is inside of me. That I cannot explain. And nobody asks for explanations either because it is impossible. It is how I work. There is no storyboard, I don’t like to see any pictures and I don’t give any references of photography. No. We should do everything out of nothing. No references. We have to focus and be very careful and pay attention to all the details of what we are doing right now.
So does that mean that most of what is decided about how the film will look happens on the day of the shoot?
Yes, of course! I have no idea. And then we have the actors and we start to talk…and I say “I have feeling…let’s try this like this”. That’s how we work. So you go to the set with a kind of fear…very anxious and everybody is waiting, saying “what are we going to do?” [laughs].
Norwegian Wood is released in Australian cinemas on October 6th
Only just got around to reading this interview. Great, well-articulated questions, and some interesting insights/responses – especially in regards to the massive language barriers that film must have faced. Hope there are more director interviews to come in Trespass!