Drive My Car: Reflections in long rides and sorrowful rhetorics
This film is a three-hour film adaptation of Haruhi Murakami’s “Men Without Women.” Many times, film adaptations of Murakami’s stories succumb to puzzling ambiguity, but “Drive My Car” has surpassed this tendency and was carefully weaved in the language and logic of audio-video storytelling.
It talks about how Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a theater actor and director, weathered the subdued questions and longing after suddenly losing his wife, Oto Kafuku (Reika Kirishima), a screenwriter. Prior to his wife’s death, Yusuke discovered that she was having an affair with a young actor.
An odd but intimate practice: Oto would craft stories while having sex with Yusuke, who, on the other hand, would listen and narrate the story when they wake up. This story became a powerful instrument to understand Oto’s psyche even after her death. A love language that is both whispered on Yusuke and the film actor.
Yusuke, as a theater actor and director, also has a mundane practice — to exchange lines with the recordings from the cassette tape, while driving his car. This practice continues even after meeting the designated driver for his car, Miraki Watari (Toko Miura) while he is tasked to direct the play “Uncle Vanya”. Reciting lines and rhetorics play a major role in making the audience feel that Oto was never gone, her charming voice would strike as a conversation with Yusuke, absorbing grief from texts within texts. The film also made me appreciate the beauty of languages as Yusuke’s expertise and direction are in a multi-lingual context.
Long takes of Yusuke’s closeup shots in his rides and transient response in conversations are images of a wildered spirit: unpredictable and mixed emotions constantly heightened. This is a powerful gaze in film storytelling.
Relationships in the film are also told in-between spaces of foreground and background. Notably, Yusuke and Miraki’s developing closeness was portrayed at ease. Most of their scenes are only present in the car. In the beginning, whenever Miraki drives, Yusuke would often flump on the backseat. Later on, he will rest himself in the passenger seat, even offering Miraki a smoke while driving — a practice that he had forbidden when he agreed to officially hire Miraki as a driver. From there, they will hear each other, sharing their long-repressed agonies.
Although the ending might be open for interpretation, which is often the case in Murakami’s stories, it was the kind of ending that departs in serenity. The film and the play ended with a step forward.
Overall, Drive My Car is a portrayal of how complex human intimacy is and makes us feel the weight — so dense — that impede us from liberating ourselves from unresolved baggage.
