Lead Astray by a Capsule

In the past year I’ve checked out at least five Haruki Murakami novels from the library. In each case, I’ve left them on my desk for a month and returned them without ever opening them. I’m not sure why I haven’t ever started one. So when I read in the capsule review for Starfish Hotel, that it “recreates the milieu of Haruki Murakami,” I thought it the perfect chance to break the seal – and in just two hours!

Imagine my disappointment to discover that it was a (to quote the press release) “Japanese Mystery” by John Williams, a Welsh ex-pat who’s lived in Japan for umpteen years. It had nothing to do with Murakami except references in every review. He made me feel right at home, though, by reusing the rabbit costume from Donnie Darko.

There are no new ideas anyway, right, so it’s not a big deal and Williams executes the Japanese ghost story with panache. He did seem to try a little hard when, after the third act finished and everything made sense (more or less) he plopped on a fourth act to make the movie inscrutable again.

Williams also does that banal tension that suffuses so many modern Japanese movies very well: dehumanizing crowds, cold modern apartments, inexplicable time shifts and constant portentous fade-to-blacks. It’s a milieu that I enjoy, so I enjoyed the movie. But I still haven’t read a Murakami novel. It’s almost enough motivation to crack this copy of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle sitting at my desk. I really wish I had time to read it, but it’s due next week.