On Murakami Adaptations

After having watched snippets of a few Murakami stories that have been adapted for the screen,  I've found myself wondering what the key to a successful adaptation of his style is, and whether it's a style that can really translate to the screen. I'm a huge film lover and I try and resist the notion that adaptations are always inferior, or that there are stories that are supposedly "un-filmable", but even I have to admit that the flighty, aloof surrealism of Murakami seems to be the most magical on the page rather than on the screen. The adaptation of All God's Children Can Dance is a prime example of this; what feels magical and downright cool on the page ends up feeling plodding and pointless on the screen. It just feels like any one of the many dime dozen directionless indies that one can watch, entirely lacking that special Murakami pizzazz.

The film version of Tony Takitani, however, is a much more interesting, far more watchable adaptation of Murakami's work than All God's Children. There's something about Tony Takitani that just works. Maybe it's the stylish shot compositions, the camera moves that glide from left to right, scene to scene. Or maybe its the way characters will complete the narrator's next thought via dialogue, or the confident pace the story allows itself to unfold, or some other hard to define aspect. Just like the source author's style, maybe it's that hard to define aspect of the Tony Takitani film that makes it a success.