Imagine… A Wild Sheep Chase- in search of Haruki Murakami explores the strange, offbeat, sexually charged world of Japan’s most popular and internationally acclaimed writer.
Haruki Murakami is incomparable, a literary novelist, tipped for the Nobel Prize who writes cool, witty, and often surreal bestsellers. Notoriously enigmatic and media shy Murakami has always shunned radio and television. However, he agreed to a rare and frank off-camera interview for this programme.
In this impressionistic film Alan Yentob travels in Japan through the bizarre labyrinthine landscape of Murakami’s fiction on a jazz fuelled ‘wild sheep chase’ of a journey. In Tokyo and Kobe he delves into the social and political background of Murakami’s work. He encounters his fans, critics, translators and a talking cat.
Elements of the film include a visit to dormitory in the hills above Waseda University where the author lived as a student, which inspired much of Norwegian Wood. A search for the hotel in Hokkaido where the sheepman from The Wild Sheep Chase hides. All of these moments give viewers a unique insight into the inspiration to Murakami’s novels.
Murakami remains, like his novels, a mystery. In the film, we never see Murakami, or hear his voice. However, in the off camera interview, Murakami explains why his privacy is essential to his work.
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