Drive My Car
Drive My Car is sticky. It sticks to you. It stays with you. It keeps reminding you of its presence. It is strange to say this because it is minimal and at times vacant. It seems like it should be long forgotten but like memories, it ‘sticks to you’.
Drive My Car, actors Hidetoshi Nishijima and Toko Miura.
Drive My Car is focused on the reflections of loss by lead character Yusuke Kafuku (played by Hidetoshi Nishijima) and his connection with Misaki Watari (played by Toko Miura), whom drives the 1980’s red SAAB 900 Turbo to and from rehearsals during Kafuku’s theatrical residency for the Checkov play Uncle Vanya, in which he is the director.
Director and co-screenwriter, Ryusuke Hamaguchi
What is Drive My Car about? I think it’s about language and landscape. Language from the perspective of this being a Japanese film telling the story of rehearsals for a Checkov (Russian) play by actors across languages of Korean, some English and signing. And, of course, there is body language, gesture and silence. This film demonstrates film’s ability to present stillness, gesture and less, to articulate more.
Moments of stillness and gesture are carried through to scenes of the Hiroshima landscape. Here landscape is a character like Manhattan is part of the ensemble in Woody Allen films. Themes of distance and despair are reinforced in the car interiors, somehow isolated from context, cruising, disconnected and remote. At times claustrophobic, the SAAB interior forms a bubble for memories to surface.
Interiors of the SAAB 900 Turbo.
Drive My Caris based on the short story (of the same name) by Haruki Murakami and has won multiple awards (including three Palme d’Ors and an Academy for Best International Feature Film) for all the cast and crew (including director Ryusuke Hamaguchi and screenwriters Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe). There is a confidence and ambition to this film that is restrained and powerful. Don’t get me wrong, l love an energetic ‘rollercoaster’ film that sucks you in and carries you along, but Drive My Car is a film about journey not destination. Yes, getting in a plane is faster but driving is more fun.
S.W.