Film Review: Drive My Car

Director: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
Starring: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tôko Miura, Reika Kirishima
Running time: 179 minutes

When a film has a forty minute opening sequence before the title credits appear on screen, you know you are in the hands of a master with extreme confidence. Ryusuke Hamaguchi takes a short story from the collection Men Without Women by ​​Haruki Murakami and turns it into a large-scale humanistic epic which focuses on a myriad of topics covering loss, love, infidelity and the art of acting itself. 

Throughout the film we follow Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a theatre actor and director who, following the death of his wife, a screenwriter (Reika Kirishima) named Oku, takes up a residency to shoot a version of Chekov’s Uncle Vanja in Hiroshima. We are shown that the last time he performed this on stage, soon after his wife passed away, he was unable to control his emotions. While directing, he meets various characters, including a young woman named Watari (Tōko Miura), who is hired to be his personal chauffeur during his time in Hiroshima. 

Kafuku is initially reluctant to the idea; he often uses the solitude of driving alone to listen to recorded playbacks of his deceased wife acting out parts of Vanja, and he doesn’t want to share this process with anyone else. Eventually, though, he warms up to the enigmatic driver, and a bond between them is formed. Watching the relationship between Kafuku and Watari grow and morph is something that happens at such a terrific pace that it all just feels so natural. It is truly wonderful to watch.

Hamaguchi takes influence from directors such as Eric Rohmer, Robert Altman and John Cassavetes to create an incredibly naturalistic film that genuinely feels alive. His dialogue is very real and balances comedy and melodrama absolutely perfectly. You can tell that he has experience in documentary filmmaking, as at times it doesn’t even feel like you are watching fiction. Every character is incredibly fleshed out and written with such attention-to-detail that they simply feel like real people, steering clear of caricatures. 

These are brought to life by some truly amazing performances, notably by the two leads Hidetoshi Nishijima and Tôko Miura - whose nuanced acting captures their grief and trauma in such a way that feels both tragically sad but almost transcendental in how they move past these feelings and overcome them. All of this highlights Hamaguchi’s brilliant method of working with actors.

One of the most obvious highlights of Drive My Car is its lush visuals. Cinematographer Hidetoshi Shinomiya works wonders at capturing the landscape of Japan; with both its towering modernist city scapes and seemingly endless roads that lead out into the darkness, all captured with this digital shine. Kafuku’s car, the ultimate star of the show, is a glorious red Saab 900 Turbo. We follow as it glides through the winding Hiroshima streets as the sun glares off the gleaming paint and rear mirrors, or when the monolithic Japanese highways are illuminated only by the scattered lights placed along the roadside. There is something extremely euphoric about simply watching a car drive, especially when it is filmed in such a beautiful manner. 

Not only is it a great visual piece, the car is also one of the key locations of the film, with a large part of the film taking place inside its interiors. A claustrophobic setting allows the characters to reveal the darker parts of themselves and talk openly about the secrets they keep within them. One scene in particular is a conversation between Kafuku and a younger theatre actor which takes place at night in the back of the car. It lasts almost ten minutes but floats by in a sort of ethereal way. All of the visuals are aided by an incredibly soothing and emotive jazz score that is so good you can listen to it even after watching, and be reminded of all the emotional lows and highs the film had to offer.

Despite running at an intimidating three hours in length, Drive My Car is extremely engrossing throughout and never, at any point, feels remotely boring. Hamaguchi refuses to rely on voice-overs or flashbacks to convey the story. The film is able to provide context to the backstories of each character and navigate the emotions each of them feel through speech and body language. Using the Uncle Vanja play as a plot device, something not in the original short story, is ingenious and works as both a metaphor for the character’s (mainly Kafuku’s) emotions and also a somewhat metatextual peek into the role of acting and how, in some ways, we all act at times to conceal our emotions and become other people. 

By now, the buzz surrounding Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s three-hour drama epic is reaching maximum velocity. After being nominated for four Oscars, landing in both best foreign language picture and best picture, it has become one of the most talked about films of the last year. Quite frankly the hype is in every single way justified. Drive My Car is an absolutely outstanding film that is both emotionally enriching but also a beautifully made visual spectacle. It is the rare case of life-changing cinema that both takes a look at the wounds of the past but focuses, with optimism, on how we can proceed into the future. It is without doubt that the future looks bright for Hamaguchi and having made three absolutely incredible films consecutively, it doesn’t look like there is any chance of stopping him. 

Did you know? Hamaguchi originally wanted to use The Beatles song Drive My Car (which the short story and film are named after) but getting the rights to use it caused too much trouble.

Drive My Car has been re-released by Broadway Cinema until Thursday 3 March