Who would have thought that a three-hour Japanese movie, based off a Haruki Murakami (村上 春樹) short story, intertwined with copious amount of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, that meditated on love, life, grief, guilt and letting go would so easily be one of the best films of the year so far. It was no wonder that Drive My Car won the Best Screenplay award at this year's Cannes Film Festival. This was an absolutely arresting, thoroughly engaging film that was well worth the three hours screen time. Admittedly, it did sag a bit in the Second Act, but the pay off in the end was worth it.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi's (濱口 竜介) follow-up to the equally enigmatic Wife of a Spy, again employed a deceptively simple style of matter-of-fact storytelling but underlaid it with actors, characters, dialogue, mood, tone and atmosphere that was utterly rich in emotions with none of the histrionics. There were no big set pieces or moments of sparring emotions. Instead, Hamaguchi served us a subtle, elegant exploration of human emotion and human connection. It was minimalistically Japan-esque.
Murakasami's words and themes were beautifully brought out and evolved from his much simpler short story of the same title. The addition of Chekhov to the script not only added a new layer of elegance but also served to smartly allow Hamaguchi to inform the audience and guide their experience without being overtly intrusive (a little tad heavy handed at the end, but the execution softened the blow).
However, this three-hour film would not have been tolerable if not for its cast, especially lead actor Hidetoshi Nishijima (西島 秀俊), Nishijima was practically there from the start to the end and in almost every scene (maybe even all the scenes). He has an enigmatic presence with a face that was sincere yet consistently hard to read. He and his character were equally guarded and unfathomable, but every time we get a new morsel of insight it was a whole new revelation. The quintessential Murakami protagonist.
But, like all good Murakami stories, the central male figure will need equally enigmatic and magnetic females. And, lucky us, we get three shining examples here. Reika Kirishima (霧島れいか), as Nishijima's character's metaphorically mysterious wife who dominated the First Act and was an ever present specter throughout; Toko Miura (三浦透子) as the wise beyond her years eponymous driver of the car with a backstory the slowly unfurled and magically, like in all Murakami stories, tied in with Nishijima's story; and Park Yoo-rim (박유림) as a mute-Korean actress in the play-within-the-movie who as Chekhov's Sonya personified the heart and emotional core of the film.
A little shout out to Masaki Okada (岡田 将生) who was the sort-of antagonist but in the end delivered a beautiful monologue that was piercing in its honesty and truth, and kind of redeemed him as a character.
And also to Eiko Ishibashi (石橋英子) for a lovely score to accompany the narrative.
Oscar season has now started! I hope this will be Japan's entry for the Best International Film Oscar.
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