QCinema 2021 | Drive My Car

 

Ryusuke Hamaguchi's works have been closely intertwined with the medium of theater and performance art in one way or another; the climax of Touching the Skin of Eeriness (2013) is interpretative, soul-bearing dance in the vein of Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa (2011) and the metacinematic Intimacies (2012) (with whom his latest film, Drive My Car, shares a lot of DNA) explores the transformation of words on a screenplay into meaning and emotion on the stage. This latest film, an adaptation of Haruki Murakami's short story of the same name, is definitely inspired by those past films, with Hamaguchi injecting alterations big and small that enable the film to transcend the source material entirely.

Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is an actor and playwright. He's asked to head a staging of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. He hasn't gotten a lot of work since his wife's untimely death. But for now, he accepts, and begins a journey of reflection and grief.

Nishijima is perfect for the role of Kafuku, his deadpan face conveying a surfeit of hidden emotions bubbling beneath the surface. Like in Murakami's short story, he's troubled by the fact that he doesn't completely know the wife he loved for many years, and is unable to fully grieve for her or let go. He knows that she has engaged in many affairs, but he does not know to what extent, and he does not know the secrets she has shared with them. That certainty of being uncertain exists as a blind spot, functioning much like the glaucoma that prevents him from driving, As he rides in his car, he rehearses the lines from Uncle Vanya, while the voice of his dead wife responds to him. He says these lines as if he were speaking to her, but there is no emotion or meaning to them; they are just words. His wife's name is also made doubly meaningful by Hamaguchi; while unnamed in the original story, her name here is Oto, the Japanese name for sound, and also a homonym for "auto." The car is a safe haven from the reality of her death, a tether that keeps him inexorably bound to her memory.

Accompanying Kafuku is his driver, Misaki Watari (actress/singer Toko Miura), an equally deadpan, hyper-competent driver's driver who serves as a sounding board for Kafuku's trauma. She has her own baggage to bring, however, and in the climax, the two form a connection because of that. Her existence, and Kafuku's relationship with her as a driver and confidante of sorts, mirrors Kafuku's relationship with his own wife. Despite not knowing one's entirety, he eventually learns to place his trust in them nevertheless, and only then can he move forward.

This also plays into the major change that Hamaguchi imposed onto Drive My Car; his elaboration of Kafuku's staging of Uncle Vanya. Here, the principal actors all speak different languages: Japanese, Korean, Sign Language, Chinese, Tagalog. They are not given translations for their co-actors' words; instead, they intuit the meaning from their co-actors' performances. The words are like a prayer, or a sutra: ultimately meaningless, but filled with the intent of those who supplicate to the gods. Here Hamaguchi ties the theme of Murakami's original text: that sometimes it is important to look inward as much as one looks outward. Emotions have more heft than mere words, as a lifetime of emotions spent with a loved one is more important than whatever secrets they took to the grave.