A rising director in the firmament of contemporary Japanese cinema, Ryusuke Hamaguchi marks a prolific 2021 with two important works of cinematic impact and perfectly fluid narrative: Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, which screened in competition at the Berlinale in February, and his latest, Drive My Car.
A visualization — more than an adaptation — of Haruki Murakami’s eponymous short story, Drive My Car is a road movie sui generis that travels paths of loneliness, loss, and bereavement, and investigates the deepest meaning of artistic representation as a universal key to understanding human nature.
Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is a successful stage actor and director, married to Oto (Reika Kirishima), a beautiful playwright with many secrets, with whom he shares a beautiful life, a painful past, and a fruitful artistic collaboration. When Oto dies suddenly, Kafuku is left with the many unanswered questions their relationship has always posed, and regret over his inability to truly understand her. Two years later, still incapable of fully coping with his loss, he accepts an offer to direct a play at a theatre festival and drives to Hiroshima in his immaculate, flaming red Saab 900. At his destination, having to comply with the strict festival rules, he will have to let Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a taciturn young woman and a very skilled chauffeur, drive his car.
Travelling the bluish hues of Hamaguchi’s landscapes and settings, the bright red car strikes the eye and the imagination — a special host to memories and sorrows, listener to hundreds of lines from plays recited by Kafuku like ritual litanies, and the special central character of a special movie. [+]
Hamaguchi seems to be back in good shape again. I was disappointed in Heaven Is Still Far Away (2016) and Asako I & II (2018), but Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021) was solid. I hope this will be good too!
About twenty years ago I discovered that Japanese cinema was among the best set of films in the world, if not the very best. In particular Japanese filmmakers are very good at making works about interpersonal relationships, with situations involving big questions of existence involving the meaning of life, love, loss and death. The Japanese seem to be more consistently able to effectively explore this, with a sincerity I often find to be lacking in movies from other countries. American films seldom seem to pull this off anymore. I keep up on Japanese movies by watching a show called J-FLICKS which is broadcast on NHK. Some months ago I saw a review of a movie there that intrigued me more than most, and I resolved to see it. I therefore was pleasantly surprised when it opened in Bangkok. I fortunately knew little about this one before watching it. I think the trailer, which I subsequently watched, reveals a little too much about the plot. So I will avoid writing much about the plot here.
"Drive My Car" or "Doraibu mai kā" in Japanese was co-written (along with Takamasa Oe) as well as directed by Ryusuke Hamaguch. All those "big question" elements I already mentioned are strongly written into the excellent script which is based upon the short story (under 40 pages) of the same name written by Haruki Murakami and included in his 2014 short story collection, ”Men Without Women.”
The movie starts out centering upon a stage actor, Yūsuke Kafuku, excellently played by Hidetoshi Nishijima as well as Kafuku's screenwriter wife, Oto, played by the lovely Reika Kirishima. We first see him performing in a play onstage. I instantly recognized the play, which has two characters talking under a tree because of that modern drama class. I realized it was near the end of "Waiting For Godot" which in this production had multilingual subtitles projected on a screen above and behind the actors. I actually attended a live performance of this play in the Thailand Cultural Center (in English) about thirty years ago. I was there with a handful of friends from church. After only a few minutes I was the only one still seated and watching the play as the others couldn't handle it. I was there to the end.
The life of this childless middle-aged couple in Tokyo is shown in what amounts to a 40-minute prologue before the credits finally appear.Their four year old daughter had died twenty years before.They appear to be nicely matched, including professionally as he helps with the transcribing of her stories and she dictates the dialogue of plays he needs to memorize on cassette tapes which he plays while driving.
The audience learns something very significant about this couple early on, and probably know it will be have a major impact when it is revealed to other characters in the movie. Waiting for it to be sprung was a bit like setting up a Hitchcockian suspense situation, the audience being more clued in than the characters being watched.
With the onset of the credits a new phase of the plot starts, two years later in Hiroshima where Yūsuke has been invited to live in residence for several weeks to cast and direct a multilingual production of "Uncle Vanya" by Chekhov. Actors from throughout Asia have been allowed to come and audition in their own languages. He reluctantly accepts an assigned driver, the young, taciturn Misaki Watari, played by Tōko Miura. Their relationship is the heart of the movie, which of course shows up in the title. A lot of scenes take place in his old but we'll maintained fire engine red Saab as the two drive together. In its last part it turns into a "road movie" which is a venerable genre.
Most of the movie takes place during the five week rehearsal period for the play in Hiroshima.The plot of the movie starts assuming similarities to the interactions of the characters in the play, with scenes in rehearsal resembling a sort of a play-within-a-play, and scenes and dialogue outside of the actual play showing life imitating art. I have only read portions of Uncle Vanya, but now want to read all of it and see it staged. I am reminded of an interesting fellow I met at the Hollywood First Presbyterian Church named David Schall. He was an actor that was also involved with ministry to the entertainment community. He was found to have died in his parked car on opening night of a production. of "Uncle Vanya" in Hollywood where he was to play the title role in 2003. He was a heck of a nice guy and I remember him fondly.
The script for this movie is superbly original and literate. It is deftly constructed in a way to maintain an audience's interest throughout its long running time.This movie never lulls or drags.There are at least three relatively long monologues that resemble soliloquies in plays, when characters express much of their inner feelings.
One of my pet peeves is how the average length of movies has grown in recent years. Rarely is the increased ruining time justified, and padding is very evident. "Drive My Car" is only one minute shy of being three hours long, and to be honest this running time intimidated me when approaching its viewing. But even though almost three hours long it doesn't seem overlong even without the excitement of car crashes, special effects, aliens from outer space or comic book super heroes. But it is sparked by revelations about the characters bit by bit, like the peeling apart the layers of an onion. The movie is slow paced, but new revelations about character as it goes along keep it interesting. It isn't padded.
There are metaphors I noticed, and probably some I did not. There is one involving cigarettes that is the most prominent metaphor if its type that I can think of in a movie other than the iconic scene with Paul Henreid and Bette Davis in "Now Voyager" (1942).
I will have to watch this again to further ascertain the importance of other things I noticed. Yūsuke not only plays cassette tapes in his car, he employs component hi-fi gear at home including a turntable. A stylus tracking vinyl records is shown multiple times. I noticed a lack of a music score in the last hour but this was probably true during most of the running time. I remember music mostly associated with a playing record. Other sounds are occasionally sharply accentuated for effect, and at other times the soundtrack goes silent.
There is a very clear end, but then one more scene comes up as sort of an epilogue. I have pondered since seeing this scene if the movie would be stronger without it. Was this originally thought up as a inter or post-credit sequence? But most people don't stick around to watch these, so in a way it is good this was placed as the actual end, even though it is anti-climatic, because it helps bring more closure and catharsis for a major character involved in the grieving process. In retrospect I think it is important that this scene be seen even though it results in the movie ending with far less of a flourish.
I found this to be near perfectly acted, perfectly directed, and perfectly edited. The lensing by Hidetoshi Shinomiya is not showy, tricky, or intrusive but blends well with the unfolding story in various places including a snowy scene very nicely shot in Hokkaido.
I can't think of anything I would have changed in this, which is only true of precious few films which I have encountered. I give it the highest compliment that I can attach to a movie, I wish I had made it. I will have to look out for future movies by Ryusuke Hamaguch. I consider this a masterpiece worthy of a 10 / 10 rating. This is probably the best film of the year. I was curious just a few minutes ago and googled "best movies of 2021" and found it listed on the first "top ten" list that came up. It has a 100% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
This has been selected as the official entry to represent Japan in the category of Best International Feature Film for the Academy Awards next year, and it will be interesting to see if it garners other nominations. It is infinitely better than the unpleasant and pretentious Korean movie "Parasite" that fared so well a couple of years ago. I consider that one to be the worst movie ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and its selection showed whet a joke these awards have become.
I will maybe add more at a later date but I will mention one thing which I have been hesitant to mention at the fear of making the film sound inaccessible. It is not - let me make that abundantly clear.
But I will add this - this is a very refined, very intelligent, and what some might call a very high-brow film. It is made for a literate discerning audience and has been made with immense nuance and refinement and grace.
It has been made a for cosmopolitan world cinema audience. And as such it does assume familiarity with the great art of the world to properly take in all that it has to offer. Namely, Uncle Vanya. I think your appreciation of the film will be deeper if you are familiar with Uncly Vanya. So I do recommend people to read Uncle Vanya before they watch this film. They will get so much more out of this film that way.
Be that as it may, this film is 100% a masterpiece. It is made with such immense gravity, even while watching it you know you are watching greatness. Its formal accomplishment is undeniable. It has the kind of reserve and stateliness of a magnum opus. It has the breadth and depth of life itself. It has the wisdom of a great master - which is surprising since this is made by a 42 year old.
All his art is brought to bear in this film. This is a major work of world cinema. A completely contemporary film. We need not look for profundity in period pieces. Our own modern world that we live in has plenty to offer. This is a movie of the moment and made with towering film-making skill.
If you are unfamiliar with Hamaguchi you might wonder how this director just appearing on the scene could make a work of such magnitude. I think the world has been sleeping on him. He was always doing great work, it is only with his last film that the world discovered him it seems.
Better late than never but absolutely add him to the roster of the greater masters working in cinema today. A work of this level of excellence can only come from a truly great director.
It has been made a for cosmopolitan world cinema audience. And as such it does assume familiarity with the great art of the world to properly take in all that it has to offer. Namely, Uncle Vanya. I think your appreciation of the film will be deeper if you are familiar with Uncly Vanya. So I do recommend people to read Uncle Vanya before they watch this film. They will get so much more out of this film that way.
Thank you for your post. I already had a copy on "Uncle Vanya" on my Kindle, but now I am motivated to read it all the way through.
I am also now very motivated to seek out past works by Ryusuke Hamaguch, including "Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy" from earlier this year.
this will only play at 3 (in-person) screenings locally for me, none of which I can attend. Anyone know when the digital release is planned? Managed to catch a virtual screening of Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy in October and thought it was fantastic, very much looking forward to this one
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Drive My Car (2021)
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