We’re all fans of Haruki Murakami here. And as fans, we know two things: his dubious depictions of women and the rarity of Murakami film adaptations. Although we’re unsure if he’s better with depicting women these days, we do know we have an ultimate Murakami film adaptation in the works.
Get excited, Murakami stans—his short stories from “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” is getting animated for the silver screen.
Made by French animator Pierre Földes, “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” will be a compilation of different narratives that aims to bring Murakami’s mixture of mundanity and surrealism through animation. The premise is as follows: “A lost cat, a voluble giant toad, and a tsunami help an unambitious and schizophrenic accountant and his frustrated wife to save Tokyo from an earthquake and find meaning in their lives.”
Hmm, yes. The perfect cup of existential surrealism. We expected nothing less from this adaptation.
In Földes’ interview with French animation magazine Blink Blank, he was hoping to adapt one of Murakami’s novels for the screen. The Japanese author originally turned down his request and offered his short stories instead. Földes chose a couple of shorts, wanting to turn them into an anthology, but then decided to merge their narratives instead.
“It was only later, while I was reworking my script, that I began to interpret characters from different short stories as multiple facets of the same characters, at different points in their lives,” explains Földes. “I like to think of my life so far as a series of short stories. And thus, little by little, the idea came to me to merge the stories and characters, and combine them in a shared chronology.”
“Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” is set to be finished by early 2022. As for its cinematic release date, we would have to wait for a little while.
Watch the trailer below to satiate your need for Murakami content:
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In case you forgot, Haruki Murakami short stories are available online
Still from “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman”