Drive My Car is a beloved film among art film lovers and I can see why it is. I think it translates well from text to film – The way Murakami writes is conveyed well on screen. It was also nominated for four Oscars and won for Best International Feature Film.
Cultural Misunderstandings
While watching this I spent a lot of time trying to translate the dialogue and emotion into something that I would understand culturally. I feel like I lost focus of the atmosphere, story, and cinematography simply because I kept doing that. Certain characters and moments come across as stiff. I am not sure if it’s the acting at fault or simply the way Japanese characters are written in general. An aside to this is that Hidetoshi Nishijima conveys emotion really well. The way that Yusuke pulls himself together, avoids or ignores what he might be going through, is deeply in pain and yet isn’t just comes through in quite an astonishing and impressive way.
The Spaces Between Us
The way everyone’s stories in Drive My Car are intertwined, part of this whole, and also not, is interesting. It’s unlike films like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia where each character is sectioned off into their own story until some relevant moment where they can intersect. In Drive My Car all of these stories are intersecting at all times, the way life is. They all tell a similar tale of longing and absence. My absolute favourite of these is the story about the lamprey and this having so much significance to the character’s actions. Additionally, the sex scene between Yusuke and Oto is telling us three stories at the same exact time. I felt overwhelmed by whose story to pay attention to, whether they overlapped, were the same, or were simply co-existing.
I think due to spending so much time distracted I couldn’t enjoy the film as much as I wanted to though, despite that it was a beautiful film. Perhaps I can rewatch it in the future and get more out of it. And, hopefully you’ll enjoy it more than I did.
Rating: 3.5/5
For more of my writing on film, check out the cinema category.
