Drive My Car

I've never read anything by Murakami, nor have I seen any film adaptation of his work to date, so Drive My Car was my first encounter with this world-famous writer. I was a bit put off from the screening by the three-hour running time, but it didn't matter that much in the end. Indeed, Hamaguchi's film (and fresh Oscar winner) has a gradual but not boring narrative pace. We follow the story of director Kafuku and his driver Misaki, two people who have little in common at first glance, yet are united by guilt and the trauma of having lost a loved one. In hindsight, it could be said that the basic structure of the film isn't really that original – we've seen coming to terms with the past and the struggle with its demons elsewhere – but Drive My Car has several moments and elements that bring it to life – the behind-the-scenes preparation of a play, the blending of several cultures and languages (thumbs up for the insertion of sign language), or even the opening credits almost halfway through the film. PS: Kafuku does bring to mind the name Kafka for a reason (see the author's 2002 novel). (03/28/2022)

I try to enrich myself with Asian cinema from time to time, so I decided to watch this film because I came across it often. It is a very slow, sensitive and thoughtful story. We have to wait longer to uncover the characters' troubled pasts, but you won't be disappointed, this is a story of escape, reconciliation, forgiveness and hope. The performances are very moving, and despite the very long running time, managed to keep my attention until the end. (02/21/2023)

This film’s focus is on the unexpected understanding reached between a middle-aged theatre director and a young private chauffeur, who could be his daughter and has been assigned to him against his will by the theatre company. Thanks to the trust that is gradually built between them, they are able to confide in each other their traumas and secrets, which are part of a complex, multi-layered story about, among other things, the relationships of couples and lovers and the pain of losing a loved one. The whole movie takes place against the backdrop of rehearsals for Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in a multilingual version (including South Korean sign language), while dialogue from the play is often present in other parts of the film. Despite the fact that the plot really gets going only after more than 40 minutes (when the opening credits finally appear), the length of the film is not a hindrance at all. Drive My Car is superbly written and directed from start to finish and excels not only due to its emphasis on the formal, genteel communication between the characters, but also for its many remarkable and imaginative scenes and the inclusion of several fascinating dreamlike micro-stories. (08/29/2021)

The eponymous short story that is the source material is less than forty pages long, and apart from a few micro-paragraphs, it makes do with dialogue "about nothing" between two characters in a car (a yellow one!) during night drives through Tokyo. The adaptation is three hours long, taking barely a few points of contact from the original and incorporating motifs from other stories in the "Men Without Women" collection (which is not one of Haruki's more accomplished ones). It takes its cues from his non-magical-realist work (so it doesn't threaten Murakami's bingo), and it's all taken up by Hamaguchi in his own untamed way. The opening third in particular is, however, shamefully literal; what the source material manages to say in a couple of sentences here is shown at length, and not much of it. Once the plot shifts in time, however, it at least begins to work on multiple levels (knowledge of Chekhov's “Uncle Vanya” is expected for full enjoyment), where everything says much more. It looks at the creative process, how to communicate through art, what we want to know but are afraid to ask, various forms of (un)happy relationships, about men and women, about grief, about theatre, "why him, what does he have that I don't", about supposed guilt, about femmes fatales, about the gradual opening to others and to oneself… Well, there's not much that Hamaguchi has left unbitten, and he can basically chew it all. The running time is enormous, but except for the cursed opening prologue, not unreasonable. However, despite all its qualities (a perfectly hit melancholic note), it's still hard not to pigeonhole it as "genteel sophisticated boredom", because it's more interesting "how the filmmakers work with it and deal with it all" than "what it is like". (03/24/2022)

No, I will not throw out superlatives and I will remain significantly reserved in my evaluation. Some directors successfully fit the adaptation of a several hundred-page novel into a two-hour blockbuster, but Hamaguchi managed to stretch the adaptation of a short story one-tenth of the size into three hours. It took me three tries to watch the film and that's not a good sign. I constantly felt like I was watching a snail on vacation, not in a rush to get anywhere. The film drags on and even though it introduces interesting motifs regarding the artistic creative process and the psychological aspect of coping with the departure of a loved one, it really doesn't deserve a higher rating. Overall impression: 55%. I am horrified at the thought of how long the adaptation of a thick tome of a 19th-century Russian classic would stretch in the hands of this director. (03/19/2024)