"Norwegian Wood" is a goodlooking Japanese-language art flick, and were it to be described in a single word, that word would be "haunting." (So is the Beatles' song the title is taken from, actually.)
It centers (drifts?) on the relationships of a student, Watanabe, with two women, and is set during the time of the 1969 student uprisings. With Naoko, he shares a bond: their close friend Kiziki committed suicide, and Naoko is dismayed that though she can respond sexually to Watanabe, she never could to Kiziki.
Naoko's mental state deteriorates, and though Watanabe remains with her, he cannot help but be drawn to the vibrant Midori, who represents a lively, expected future.
The film was weak on the global unrest premise--assuming that the upheavals were a parallel to the characters' sexual unrest. Watanabe does a certain amount of walking through mobs that suggest something is about to happen, but don't seem to affect him.
I'd have like liked more of the kind of scene where debaters took over the class--they were given no chance to make their arguments, and the scene material was dropped. The screen time for that could have been taken out of the time for the sex scenes, which got slower and slower once we got the idea.
Critics' opinions are interestingly divided. So is mine.