Drive My Car (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]

If the original Murakami novel, Drive my Car, had read as long as this movie feels, it is possible I would not have finished it and maybe never watched the Hamaguchi movie. I would have missed something. The push pull for me is the inability to state for certain that this would be a better movie if it had been shorter. Objectively there has to be rehearsal scenes that need not be included. A huge amount of time watching scenery flash by the car (correction The Car) is lost time. Agreed. But life is not lived from climatic reveal to climatic reveal, and the space between these often-magical moments provide an ineffable something. Actors and the director have achieved delicate, fragile moments. Small even tiny images of reading of the play clearly mean things for the actors, especially to lead actor Hidetoshi Nishijima.For orientation a summary. Yûsuke Kafuku is our central character. He is a famous actor and director. In particular he is known for using an international cast, each speaking their native language performing in classic plays. He is hired to put on a production of the Chekov play, Uncle Vanya. In the pre movie we see him in a loving marriage with a woman who is unfaithful to him. They had lost a daughter to disease, before the move starts and he will lose his wife taking us to the end of the movie’s preliminaries.The film festival that has hired Kafuku has a standing rule that he must not drive while under their employ. He is given Misaki Watari a young woman played by Tôko Miura as his driver. She is a fine driver, but tightly self-contained.Skipping the rest of the story, one of the finest and most touching performances in the movie is by a Korean woman chosen for the cast. She is Lee Yoon-a, played by, Park Yu-rim. She can only communicate using Korean Sign Language. Her performance is wondrous, emotional and in two separate scenes achieves a whole new definition of ineffable. It is not possible for me to say it was her face, or the lighting or the words. This actress can act. All comes to together in silence, even as I was focused on the English subtitles.Without going into details, Murakami’s book and the movie he co-wrote make fools of the too many who criticism him, bandwagon style, for things alleged of his books. They are not here, nor were they in the original text.Text is a key word. The main character and several in the supporting cast are seeking personal realizations from the Chekhov's text. We will hear passages, perhaps too often, but we have to listen and internalize and relate them from their original context, into the context of the movie and just maybe into our own lives. Let us re-read the book is something the actors do without demure. Maybe we should take that advice.

Rented this movie. Movie streamed well. It's also a great movie? Not sure what I'm reviewing here.

I rented this movie as part of my goal to watch all of the films nominated for a Best Picture Oscar before the Academy Awards show this year. It was a worthwhile purchase.

I knew it was going to be a good movie.Why?All the critics raved, yet they had a hard time explaining why it was so good.This was a good sign for all things Murakami Haruki.The novelist whose book the movie is based on is a master of drama.I saw it at the movie theater with great expectationsFound the movie to be surprisingly moving in the most unexpected momentsTake the scene where the speech impaired Korean actress auditioned for the SonyaWhy it brought me tears, I don't knowI wasn't expecting thatI bought the amazon video before leaving the theater.Still it is quite surprising it won best picture for foreign films.This movie is very anti-Hollywood.No screaming, no bloodEverything subtle, only impliedYet the film runs on plot twists & emotional undercurrentAs a native Japanese speaker I wondered how anyone reading subtitles will be able to pick up on the subtleties.This is a story about communication (or lack there of).Epitomized in the theatrical performance “Uncle Vanya” played in 5 different languages.Words yet spoken, emotions unexpressed.Lost opportunities.Regrets and healing.The protagonist uses an eye drop, it trickles down his cheek.He looks as if he’s crying in the car.This forecasts the trauma he’s about to experience in the next scene.He's always sitting in the back seat of the carOnly to move to the passenger seatWhen there's an emotional developmentBringing him closer to the driver.Drama can exist without explosions/screams.Life imitates art.There are so many instances in life where a flickering gaze equal thousand words.And most of us go about missing so many of things hidden.This movie is about that.

An excellent Japanese movie with sub-titles, awarded best foreign film at 2022 Oscars. Wonderful relationship between a director of live theatre and a young woman hired by the producers for a modern version of Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya", to be his driver. Both are severely affected by guilt. The secondary theme concerns a young actor ,known by the director to have had an intimate affair with his recently deceased wife. He was selected by the director, in part for revenge, to play the part of uncle Vanya. A part previously played by the director himself. Another major part is played by a young women who communicates only by Korean sign language. The car, a red Saab, is the director's pride joy, allows the lead subjects to have intimate discussions whilst in close proximity whilst avoiding eye to eye contact.

One of the main ideas highlighted in this film is loneliness by not being able to connect with someone else; therefore the best way to try to understand someone else is to understand yourself, and you do this by sharing your thoughts and feelings to someone else. I would say this is the main plot point and this film encapsulates that perfectly. If you are someone who's into stories based off that concept, than you'll love this film and even find it therapeutic (like I did.) If you don't like films based off that concept, than it will be a big waste of time. One of the best things to learn in the arts is the purpose/meaning of your art and the audience for which that art should be marketed to. If you go into this film thinking it's going to be another Hollywood story about a guy and a girl, you'll be sadly mistaken.