FilmSnobReviews

Title: Drive My Car
Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Starring: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Toko Miura, Reika Kirishima,
MPAA Rating: Not Yet Rated
Runtime: 2 hr 59 mins

What It Is: An aging, widowed actor (Nishijima) seeks a chauffeur whilst developing a play. The actor turns to his go-to mechanic, who ends up recommending a 20-year-old girl (Miura). Despite their initial misgivings, a very special relationship develops between the two as a tragic past unravels.

What We Think: Well, I might have just found one of my new favorite films. A bold statement to start off a review, I know. However, there’s no denying that Drive My Car is, to put it frankly, one profoundly meditative ride through psyches and poetic undertones, left by the crimson streak of our main character’s vibrant red car. One may look at the runtime of this film and sigh: “It’s just too damn long”. Indeed, a three-hour runtime might seem demanding – but that’s actually a perfect reason as to why Drive My Car is perfectly paced and incredibly well executed.

The biggest factors of that execution come from the film’s shining technical prowess and mesmeric performances. The cinematography is as still as a bird watching a sleeping city, yet it also has the majestic nature of a bird flying over that same city. Here, the dazzling collaboration between Director Hamaguchi and DP Hidetoshi Shinomiya is abundantly clear in how the camera is set up and moved around. When we follow our protagonists in their little car, we’re given beautiful overheads and wides – when there’s an intimate conversation (and there are a great many), the camera softly rests on the actor’s faces, with the editing playing an almost invisible role in how well every shot blends together. Having a film that deals with grief but also perseverance and the soulfully human side of it might not sound like an easy watch – but let me say that the performances contribute so much more to the sadly symbolic and gorgeously silent stills.

Everyone here is compelling in their own ways, no doubt, but the two lead performances from Hidetoshi Nishijima and Toko Miura are the heart of Drive My Car. Their relationship is fleshed out through brilliant writing that brings extremely pensive conversations about their life experiences and what they did to cope with them. Nishijima looks like he’s holding back something terribly heartbreaking in his eyes throughout the film (we get to see more glimpses of it as we learn more about his inner thoughts) and it makes him look like a stoic man riding across a frozen lake of thin ice. Miura is similar in some ways, yet her words are delivered in a deeply serene way that made me feel for her character and wants to envelop myself in her life’s mystery. Very well-written and performed characters.

Little did I know that, ironically, this screenplay is adapted from a short story in Murakami Haruki’s “Men Without Women”. If a short story can be fleshed out in a way such as this, it should immediately show the power of Drive My Car’s alluring composition. And speaking of compositions, Eiko Ishibashi’s score tumbles lightly through the film’s lush visuals, with soothing jazz arrangements that come into play at the most reflective and pivotal moments – many of them are permanently and pleasantly resting in my mind.

Our Grade: A+; After having seen the film twice, there’s no reason why I wouldn’t go and visit it again. The journeys that little red car takes us on through a metropolis of turmoil and terror, across a snowy ruminative peak of heartbreak or back from a drink with the devil makes Drive My Car one of the best foreign films of the past few years – a perfect cinematic poem.