"Norwegian Wood," From Haruki Murakami Novel The dreamy, protracted love scenes in "Norwegian Wood" recall that now quaint era near the peak of the sexual revolution when intense young love fired the collective imagination with envy, prurience and awe. Yes, there were casual hookups then, but they were not called that in the late 1960s, when the story takes place. Romantic sex still bore a mystical aura. During the first encounter of Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama), an earnest, brooding Japanese college student, and Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi), the onetime sweetheart of his best friend, Kizuki, who committed suicide, the camera studies the delicate curves of their lips merging in a near-sacred rite of communion. It is Naoko's 20th birthday, and her loss of virginity is an earth-shaking event deepened by their shared, unspoken grief. Afterward, when Watanabe brings up Kizuki's name for the first time, Naoko collapses in tears and confesses that her sexual unresponsiveness to Kizuki, whom she had known since childhood, was a source of anguish. She appears to blame herself for his suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning; otherwise, his act would appear inexplicable. I can't remember another film since "Splendor in the Grass" (1961) so solemnly fixated on the obsessional, morbid aspects of youthful passion. Written and directed by Tran Anh Hung ("Cyclo," "The Scent of Green Papaya"), "Norwegian Wood" is his adaptation of Haruki Murakami's much loved 1987 novel. It belongs to the same feverish mind-set as Scott Spencer's novel "Endless Love" (not to be confused with its dreadful screen adaptation), in which young love is a divine but perilous form of insanity. After their fraught coupling, Naoko disappears from Watanabe's life until she contacts him from a rural sanitarium where she is recovering from a nervous breakdown. He periodically visits, but after some hopeful signs Naoko's fragile mental health deteriorates, and she descends into schizophrenia. Watanabe follows her to the edge of the cliff, so to speak, but is drawn back from the abyss by a second woman: the willful, free-spirited Midori (Kiko Mizuhara), who is Naoko's opposite. For Watanabe the women embody his inner tug of war between Eros and Thanatos. The movie, like the novel, is narrated by Watanabe, who looks back 17 years to his days as a college freshman in Tokyo. In Japan, as in the United States and Europe, it was a period of widespread student unrest. But the movie makes only token attempts to acknowledge campus ferment. One scene shows Watanabe caught up in a demonstration to which he is all but oblivious. The film has the loose narrative structure of a quasi-poetic personal journal that is more a series of reflections than a cohesive story. Watanabe isn't dislikable, but he is humorless and self-absorbed. His doomy romanticism is reflected in attenuated, beautifully photographed scenes of times spent with Naoko at different seasons when the landscape and the turbulent weather conjure her emotional instability. Jonny Greenwood's hovering music for string quartet and orchestra underlines the mood of seething emotional turmoil. Later in the film Watanabe retreats to a shallow seaside cave to grieve, surrounded by waves crashing on the rocks. He huddles, quaking from the cold, by a small bonfire. Except in this scene of his own solitary breakdown, Mr. Matsuyama's Watanabe is a glum, opaque protagonist who registers few emotions beyond a desperate desire to protect Naoko, who is susceptible to uncontrollable bouts of tears and seems increasingly unreachable. The movie's biggest flaw is a crucial imbalance. Midori, his eventual salvation, is much less vivid and sexually outspoken in the movie than in the novel. When the film ends you barely remember her, while Naoko's fragility is portrayed as an exalted state of consciousness. Reika Kirishima is sympathetic as Naoko's fellow patient and protector, Reiko, and Tetsuji Tamayama is amusing as Watanabe's classmate Nagasawa, a chain-smoking, dandified lothario who makes life miserable for his loyal girlfriend, Hatsumi (Eriko Hatsune). "Norwegian Wood" registers less as a coherent narrative than as a tortuous reverie steeped in mournful yearning. Opens on Friday in New York and Washington. Written and directed by Tran Anh Hung, based on the novel by Haruki Murakami; director of photography, Mark Lee Ping Bin; edited by Mario Battistel; music by Jonny Greenwood; production design by Yen Khe Luguern and Norifumi Ataka; costumes by Ms. Luguern; produced by Shinji Ogawa; released by Soda Pictures and Red Flag Releasing. In Manhattan at the IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village. In Japanese, with English subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 13 minutes. WITH: Kenichi Matsuyama (Watanabe), Rinko Kikuchi (Naoko), Kiko Mizuhara (Midori), Reika Kirishima (Reiko Ishida), Kengo Kora (Kizuki), Eriko Hatsune (Hatsumi) and Tetsuji Tamayama (Nagasawa).