Hidetoshi Nishijima and Tōko Miura struggle with time and grief in Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's exquisite Drive My Car |
That echoes the loops through Hiroshima the car of the title
drives in this delicate, throught-provoking and mesmerising film, that expands
a Murakami short story into three hours of meditative screentime. Yūsuke Kafuku
(Hidetoshi Nishijima) is a celebrated theatre director, specialising in
multi-lingual productions of classic Western plays. One day when his flight is
delayed, he returns home unannounced to find his wife, screenwriter Oto (Reika
Kirishima), making love to an unseen man. Unnoticed, Kafuku quietly leaves and
says nothing. Their relationship seems to continue unchanged for a few weeks, with
Oto clearly distressed and concerned when Kafuku is in an accident. But she
seems to notice a new reticence in Kafuku and, one day, asks that they have a
conversation when he returns home for work. When he does, he finds Oto has died
from a sudden brain haemorrhage. What was she going to say to him?
Marking the leisurely pace of Hamaguchi’s film, this takes up
the opening 40 minutes at which point the opening credits roll. It’s sprinkled
with the details of an elaborate backstory: we discover the couple lost a child
aged 5 several years ago and decided to not have another (though Kafuku may
regret this). There is a suspicion her lover may have been young actor
Takatsuki (Masaki Okada). Two years later, Kafuku agrees to direct a production
of Uncle Vanya at a Hiroshima theatre festival. Events there will lead
him to confront his conflicted feelings about the loss of his wife he both
still adores and also, on some level, resents.
Kafuku has carefully constructed his life to maximise his
control. He seems to have abandoned acting his signature role of Vanya. Later
in the film Kafuku states that Chekhov’s words reveal our true selves – and its
clear, from the snatch we see of his performance shortly after Oto’s death,
that true self is one Kafuku is in no position to face. Vanya’s grief,
resentment, pain at his lost love, anger at the chances in life he has missed –
all of these bring to the surface Kafuku’s feelings about his own life. Hamaguchi’s
choice of play is a masterstroke: as we listen to Chekhov’s words they shade
and deepen the themes in the film: Chekhov’s autumnal sadness is a perfect reflection
of the film.
We hear a lot of Uncle Vanya, as Kafuku’s last link
to his wife is a cassette recording she made of the dialogue for Kafuku to play
in the car (there are gaps for Vanya’s lines, which he fills with a monotonous
flatness). He plays this constantly in his car, an aged Saab he has kept
beautifully conditioned for fifteen years (meaning he purchased it at the time
of his child’s death, adding to its emotional importance). A key part of his
sense of control over his life, is the driving and reciting of these lines:
hence his request for a hotel an hour’s drive from the theatre.
The isolation and control of driving the car is so
important, that it’s a major shock for Kafuku to discover that, for insurance
reasons, he has to have a driver for the duration of the production. This is a
young woman, Misaki Watari (Tōko Miura), who prides herself on her driving
skills (she states it is the only thing she can do well) and who Kafuku
reluctantly agrees to hand the keys over to. She wins his eventual trust by her
competence and skill – she cares for the car just as he does – and her
willingness to sit in silence and let Kafuku continue his ritual of reciting
the lines from Vanya.
The growing closeness of these two characters becomes the
engine (if you can call it that for a film that luxuriates so much in taking
its time) of this thought-provoking and eventually very affecting masterpiece.
Both characters find similarities and contrasts in each other: both are dealing
with processing the loss of a loved one and, most painfully of all, the
questions about who they truly were and what they truly felt that can now never
be answered. This plays out in almost the exact opposite of heartfelt
conversations: instead long, patient scenes as trust grows not always through
words but through mutual comfort, the sharing of a cigarette, discussion of
other issues and the impact of time spent in each other’s company.
Time is vital to this. The barriers both these characters
have built in themselves to process their feelings would never come down
quickly. Hamaguchi’s patience is vital for us to understand how tightly they have
wound up their emotions. Kafuku directs with a rigid control, his multi-lingual
technique (with at least five languages in the company) demands clarity and long
sessions of reading around a table so that actors absorb the flow of the play.
It does not allow for flexibility and improvisation. Similarly, Misaki’s
driving follows pre-ordained routes and a schedule, that seems to prevent her
thinking about other things.
Throughout Hamaguchi avoids sign-posting. Kafuku’s feelings about his wife seem confused and conflicting from scene-to-scene – the Chekov dialogue reflects this, sometimes tinged with intense sorrow and regret, at others bitterness and fury. Kafuku recruits the man he thinks his wife’s lover for the play – casting him in his signature role of Vanya. But why? Does he even know? It could be to accuse him, to control him, to destroy him, to get closer to his wife – or it could be parts of all of them. Definitive answers are kept to a minimum – but then that reflects life.
The relationship between the two comes to a head (such as it
is in a film where long conversations slowly reveal buried emotional truth) in
a long, late-night car journey shot by Hamaguchi in a carefully controlled
one-shot/two-shot that has a classic simplicity that lets the emotion and
acting come to the fore. Drive My Car is as unflashy a film as you can
get, but its restraint, beautiful but serene imagery and gentle pace add to its
slow-burn effect. The moments of emotional catharsis, when they come, are all
the more affecting for it – and truly carry a sense of life-changing impact.
The performances are beautiful. Nishijima is quiet, reserved
but conveys oceans of conflicted emotion below the surface which he keeps
patiently bottled-up. It’s a low-key, highly expressive and tenderly gentle
performance. He plays exquisitely with Tōko Miura who at first makes Misaki
seem like any number of slightly-surly hirelings, but in turn unveils emotional
depths and pain that constantly surprise. Reika Kirishima is both radiant,
tender and unknowable as Oto. Masaki Okada is perfect as the lost Takatsuki. Park
Yoo-rim is a stand-out among the ensemble as a mute Korean actress
communicating through sign language (her acting in the play-within-the-play is
stunning).
Originally intended to be filmed in Korea, there is a
beautiful serendipity about the pandemic forcing a location change to
Hiroshima. No other city on Earth carries such an association with pain and the
slow recovery over time. Drive My Car takes the time it needs to explore
how grief seeps into us and is only addressed through great care and strength.
It’s profoundly engrossing and moving for all of its length – you wouldn’t want
to change a thing about it.
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