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Drive My Car (film)
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Wikipedia article
{{Infobox film
| name = Drive My Car
| image = Drive My Car movie poster.jpeg
| caption = Theatrical release poster
| native_name =
| director = Ryusuke Hamaguchi
| producer =
| screenplay =
| based_on =
| starring =
| music = Eiko Ishibashi
| cinematography = Hidetoshi Shinomiya
| editing = Azusa Yamazaki
| studio =
| distributor = Bitters End (Japan)
| released =
| runtime = 179 minutes
| country = Japan
| language = Japanese
| budget =
| gross = $15.2 million
}}
is a 2021 Japanese drama film co-written and directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi dealing with the grief and loss of a middle-aged theater director following the premature death of his wife. It is based on Haruki Murakami's short story of the same name from his 2014 collection 'Men Without Women', while taking inspiration from other stories in it. The film follows Ysuke Kafuku (played by Hidetoshi Nishijima) as he directs a multilingual production of 'Uncle Vanya' in Hiroshima and grapples with the death of his wife, Oto.
'Drive My Car' had its world premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or and won three awards, including Best Screenplay. The film received widespread critical acclaim, with many declaring it one of the best films of 2021. It earned four nominations at the 94th Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, winning Best International Feature Film.[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dWwXc0X2H-M 'Drive My Car' (Japan) Wins Best International Film|94th Oscars][https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2022 2022|Oscars.org] It is the first Japanese film nominated for Best Picture. At the 79th Golden Globe Awards, the film won Best Foreign Language Film. It became the first non-English-language film to win Best Picture from all three major U.S. critics groups (the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the New York Film Critics Circle, and the National Society of Film Critics).
Plot
Actor and well-known theater director Ysuke Kafuku is married to Oto, an attractive screenwriter. Oto conceives her stories during sex and narrates them to Ysuke. After watching her husband in a performance of 'Waiting for Godot', Oto introduces Ysuke to her frequent collaborator, a conceited young actor Kji Takatsuki. When Ysuke returns home early one day, he finds his wife having sex with a young man he recognizes as Kji. He leaves silently without being noticed and does not bring it up with her. After getting into a car accident, Yusuke goes to the hospital and discovers he has glaucoma in one eye and must take prescribed eyedrops to avoid eventual blindness. His wife commiserates with him. One day, as Ysuke is leaving for work, Oto tells him she wants to talk to him later that evening. Ysuke returns home late to find Oto dead from a brain hemorrhage. After her funeral, Ysuke has a breakdown while performing in Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' and is unable to continue the show.
Two years later, Ysuke accepts a residency in Hiroshima, where he will direct a multilingual adaptation of 'Uncle Vanya'. The theater company requires that instead of driving himself that Ysuke is to be chauffeured in his own car, a red 1987 Saab 900 Turbo. He objects at first, but relents after the reserved young female chauffeur, Misaki Watari, reveals herself to be a skilled driver. During their drives, Ysuke and Misaki begin to bond. A day goes by and Ysuke casts several people, including Kji, whose career has recently been hurt by improper conduct, as Uncle Vanya despite his young age and concerns for his erratic behavior. After further consulting with his dramaturge Gong Yoon-su, Ysuke finally makes up his mind on the complete cast. The contestants who pass the audition sign the contract and they begin rehearsing altogether.
One night, having finished with a rehearsal, Kji asks Ysuke for a drink in his hotel bar. It is revealed that Kji joined the audition to play the script written by Oto and that he was jealous of Ysuke for marrying Oto. Kji later admits that he loved Oto but that it was unrequited love. As they're leaving, Kji scolds someone who secretly takes a picture of him.
Another day goes by after rehearsal, Ysuke offers Yoon-su a ride home. He returns the favor by inviting Ysuke to dinner. Later, at Yoon-su's place, Ysuke is surprised to find his wife turned out to be one of the actors. On his way home after dinner, Misaki tells him about her abusive mother who taught her to drive in junior high school.
Later that night, Kji asks Ysuke for another drink at bar. Kji is wondering why Ysuke trusted him with the role and Ysuke responds by criticizing Kji's lack of self control. On the way out of the bar, Kji slips away briefly to follow a man who had been taking photos of him without permission. During their drive home, Ysuke reveals that he and Oto lost their daughter, who would have been Misaki's age, to pneumonia. The incident enabled Oto to tell a story only after having sex with Ysuke and writing it as film scenario. He also knew of his wife's affairs but kept quiet because he believed that she still loved him in spite of those affairs. Kji shares one of Oto's stories that Ysuke had never heard in its entirety. Some days later, the police arrive at a rehearsal and arrest Kji because the photographer he fought with has now died from the injuries sustained from their fight. The directors of the residency offer Ysuke a choice: either step into the role of Vanya or cancel the play altogether. Ysuke is given 2 days to think about it.
During that spare time, Ysuke asks Misaki to take him to her childhood home in Hokkaido. During their car trip, Misaki reveals that she could have saved her mother in the mudslide, where she sustained an injury that left a prominent scar on her left cheek, but she chose not to. Ysuke feels that he might have saved his wife had he come home to face the discussion she wanted to have. They arrive at the remains of Misaki's childhood home where her mother died and they sympathize with each others separately experienced grief in dealing with life's emotional setbacks. Ysuke empathetically hugs her while they stand in the snow in front of the remains of Misaki's childhood home. They then return to Hiroshima, where Ysuke assumes the role of Vanya and gives an impassioned performance before a live audience, which includes Misaki.
In the present day, Misaki finishes shopping for groceries in Korea and gets into the red Saab. A dog waits for her in the back seat. She takes off her surgical mask, revealing that her scar is now barely visible, and drives away.
Cast
* Hidetoshi Nishijima as Ysuke Kafuku
* Tko Miura as Misaki Watari
* Masaki Okada as Kji Takatsuki
* Reika Kirishima as Oto Kafuku, Yusuke's wife
* Park Yu-rim as Lee Yoo-na
* Jin Dae-yeon as Gong Yoon-soo
* Sonia Yuan as Janice Chang
* Ahn Hwitae as Ryu Jeong-eui
* Perry Dizon as Roy Lucelo
* Satoko Abe as Yuhara
Production
The film is directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. The film was originally set in Busan, South Korea, but was changed to Hiroshima due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Writing
Hamaguchi was the co-writer of the filmscript with Takamasa Oe. It is primarily based on the short story of the same name by Haruki Murakami from his 2014 short story collection, 'Men Without Women'. The script also features elements from Murakami's stories "Scheherazade" and "Kino" (both also part of 'Men Without Women').A number of departures were incorporated into the film which differed from the original plot explored in Murakami's short story of the same name which are evident from a short synopsis of the short story:
Kafuku, a veteran and widowed actor, hires twenty-four year old driver Misaki Watari to chauffeur him around Tokyo due to his license being revoked due to a D.U.I. and glaucoma. During their trips, Kafuku occasionally tells her about his life as an actor and his late wife's extramarital affairs. One tale includes how he befriended her final lover, Takatsuki, with the intention of harming him. However, over the course of their six month friendship which was spent mostly binge drinking at local bars, he was never able to find any damning information and instead sympathizes with Takatsuki's observations. He also never learns of his wife's motives, calling it a "blind spot" in his knowledge of her. After hearing his story, Misaki notes that perhaps his wife having affairs had had nothing to do with love and that was a good enough reason to do so. After contemplating this propositions, he falls asleep as she continues driving. Dealing with actors and the world of theatre, "Drive My Car" could be considered as an example of what Graham Wolfe calls "theatre-fiction".
First, in the film version, the director does not have a revoked license but is told that theatre management policies require a driver to be assign to him. Also, Hamaguchi and Oe changed the narrative format of describing the marital infidelity to the actual filming of the infidelity as part of the introductory material leading up to the death of his wife, before he meets his driver. For the film version, the co-authors were reported by 'The New York Times' as "greatly expanded on the (short) story's central dynamic, which turns on a sexist widowed actor and the much-younger female driver who motors him around in his cherished Saab.""'Drive My Car' Review: A Director Takes Your Heart for a Spin". Critics Pick. The NY Times. [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/24/movies/drive-my-car-review.html]
Cinematography
Cinematographer Hidetoshi Shinomiya was assigned to do the filming for the project.[https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/drive-my-car-movie-review-2021 "Drive My Car Review". Carlos Aguilar. Ebert.com]Set design
The original story features a yellow Saab 900 convertible, but it was changed in the film to a red Saab 900 Turbo to visually complement the Hiroshima landscape.Soundtrack
Hamaguchi wished to incorporate the Beatles' song "Drive My Car", which the film and story are named after, however it was too difficult to get permission for its usage. He instead included a string quartet piece by Beethoven, which is directly referenced in Murakami's original story.
Writing for Pitchfork, Quinn Moreland wrote that the soundtrack "possesses a cool remove, mirroring the film's glacial profundity with organic nuance and contemplative improvisation." Vannesa Ague of The Quietus wrote; "Ishibashi creates a narrative within the theme and variations, tracing a musical path that stands on its own." Writing for PopMatters, Jay Honeycomb wrote; "Ishibashi's music washes over you when it comes, allowing the seeds planted by Hamaguchi to germinate and grow without drowning you in sentimentality."
The original score for 'Drive My Car' was composed by musician Eiko Ishibashi. In an interview with Variety, director Hamaguchi said; "Typically, I don't use a lot of music in my films, but hearing the music Ishibashi made was the first time I thought this could work for the film."
=
Music personnel
=* Eiko Ishibashi : Piano, Rhodes, Synth, Flutes, Electronics, Melodion, Vibraphone
* Jim O'Rourke : A.Guitar, E.Guitar, Pedal Steel, Guitar, Bass, Vibraphone
* Tatsuhisa Yamamoto : Drums, Percussion
* Marty Holoubek : A.Bass, E.Bass (Track 1,2,4,8)
* Toshiaki Sudoh : E. Bass (Track 5,10)
* Atsuko Hatano : Violin, Viola
Release
'Drive My Car' had its world premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in competition for the Palme d'Or.
Box office
, 'Drive My Car' has grossed $2.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $12.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $14.7 million.In the United States, the film had grossed $944,000 at the time of its Oscar nominations on February 8, 2022. Between then and March 20, it grossed $1.15 million (a 122% increase), for a running total of $2.1 million.
Home media
The DVD and Blu-ray versions of the film were released on July 19, 2022 in the USA, was released in the library of Criterion Collection films.[https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Car-Criterion-Collection-Blu-ray/dp/B09YCV1GKR/ref=sr_1_1?crid=Y2PMTQUZXDI3&keywords=drive+my+car&qid=1651334086&s=movies-tv&sprefix=drive+my+car%2Cmovies-tv%2C80&sr=1-1 Pre-release notification at Amazon. Amazon.com]Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 97% based on 210 reviews, with an average rating of 8.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "'Drive My Car's imposing runtime holds a rich, patiently engrossing drama that reckons with self-acceptance and regret." According to Metacritic, which assigned a weighted average score of 91 out of 100 based on 42 critics, the film received "universal acclaim".
The film received a positive review from Manohla Dargis in 'The New York Times', where she wrote, "'Drive My Car' sneaks up on you, lulling you in with visuals that are as straightforward as the narrative is complex." Writing for 'The Guardian', Peter Bradshaw gave the film five stars out of five and called it an "engrossing and exalting experience".
Metacritic reported that 'Drive My Car' appeared on over 89 film critics' top-ten lists for 2021, the most of any foreign-language film that year, and ranked first or second on 23 lists.
Carlos Aguilar found the cinematography of the film to be exceptional, stating that: "Bountiful in subtle imagery from cinematographer Hidetoshi Shinomiya, the film mines majestic visual symbolism from seemingly ordinary occurrences. Take for example a shot of Ysuke and Misaki's hand through the car's sunroof holding cigarettes as to not let the smoke permeate their sacred mode of transportationan unspoken communion of respect."
Accolades
was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director.
The film was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival where it won three awards including Best Screenplay. Hamaguchi and Oe became the first Japanese individuals to win the Best Screenplay Award at Cannes. At the 79th Golden Globe Awards, the film won Best Foreign Language Film.
It was picked as the Japanese entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards, making the December 2021 shortlist. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Hamaguchi, Best Adapted Screenplay for Hamaguchi and co-screenwriter Takamasa Oe, and Best International Feature Film, winning the latter award. It was the first Japanese film nominated for Best Picture, and Hamaguchi became the third Japanese director nominated for Best Director since Hiroshi Teshigahara in 1965 and Akira Kurosawa in 1985.
It became the latest (and the first non-English-language film) of the only six to win Best Picture from all three major U.S. critics groups (LAFCA, NYFCC, NSFC), the other five being 'Goodfellas', 'Schindler's List', 'L.A. Confidential', 'The Social Network' and 'The Hurt Locker'.
See also
* List of submissions to the 94th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film
* List of Japanese submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film
* Road movie
References
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