Among the presents my generous brother gave my wife and me for Christmas was a DVD of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car (whose Japanese name is a transliteration of the English phrase: ドライブ・マイ・カー Doraibu Mai Kā). I’d been eager to see it, and we watched it yesterday (when we had time for a three-hour movie); it was even better than I expected, and I recommend it to all lovers of cinema. But what brings it to LH is the linguistic element, for which I quote Nina Li Coomes’ Atlantic article (archived):
Though the film is mainly about the close friendship that forms between an actor and director named Yusuke Kafuku and the young woman, Misaki Watari, who is hired as his driver, it also follows Kafuku’s efforts to stage a play in Hiroshima. Specifically, he’s directing a multilingual production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya with a cast composed of actors who speak English, Chinese, Tagalog, Japanese, and Korean Sign Language; during rehearsals, not all the actors can understand what the others are saying. But the task Kafuku lays out for his multilingual cast is the same one that Hamaguchi lays out for his multilingual audience: Even if you don’t understand all the words being spoken in the script, trust that the emotional response you have will be genuine.
In many scenes, the dialogue has nothing to do with the real drama taking place. For example, during table reads for Uncle Vanya, Kafuku asks his performers to practice their lines by delivering them in their mother tongues with as little acting as possible. The idea seems to be to first have the actors memorize the rhythm of the script, reducing it to an instinctive ebb and flow of sound rather than meaning. A young actor named Takatsuki, who is cast as Uncle Vanya, chafes against this directive, adding too much feeling to his lines; an exasperated Kafuku asks him to try again and again.
The multilingual element is brilliantly done (and I was awestruck by the actress who uses Korean Sign Language — one is used to seeing interpreters for the hearing-impaired, but this really brings home the difference between interpreting and acting); I love movies that throw various languages into the mix, like Godard’s Contempt (see this LH post from 2003). And Godard had exactly the same attitude: “Don’t try to act, just say the lines!”
Also, I had somehow never gotten around to reading the Chekhov play, and this gave me the perfect opportunity to do so. It too (you will not be surprised to hear) is excellent.
Available on HBO Max for now.
Japanese name is a transliteration of the English phrase: ドライブ・マイ・カー Doraibu Mai Kā
I haven’t seen it, but I have a suspicion it is might be from the Beatles song of the same name.
I suspect you’re right, although there’s no reference to the story in the movie. I haven’t read the story it’s based on.
As the movie’s based on a story by Haruki Murakami, the Beatles connection seems like a safe bet. Wikipedia says: “Hamaguchi wished to incorporate the Beatles’ song “Drive My Car”, which the film and story are named after, however it was too difficult to get permission for its usage. He instead included a string quartet piece by Beethoven, which is directly referenced in Murakami’s original story.”
The movie is almost, not quite but almost, a Chekhov adaptation. I was shocked and delighted how much Chekhov was seen or heard.
Another film of his, Happy Hour, also shares the theme of making explicit the theatrical elements, which are usually hidden in movies. This time he does it with a writer and her novel (literally being read). Breaking the fourth wall through language and literature may sound like a cliché nowadays, but at least he does this in a refreshing way that does not make his story appear forced.
As for the trend in naming movies with The Beatles’ songs, And Your Bird Can Sing by Shô Miyake is another movie I liked.
Wikipedia says: “Hamaguchi wished to incorporate the Beatles’ song “Drive My Car”, which the film and story are named after, however it was too difficult to get permission for its usage. He instead included a string quartet piece by Beethoven, which is directly referenced in Murakami’s original story.”
Thanks! Much as I love the Beatles song, I’m glad he didn’t get the rights — the movie works better without it.
It has always been infamously difficult to get permission to use The Beatles’ music in film and television productions. It makes sense that they had to be choosey, since they must have been inundated with requests from the point at which incorporating pop music into soundtracks became a commonplace practice. However, this effectively meant that if a filmmaker wanted to use Beatles music, they needed to have a specific “in” with at least one of the surviving band members.
Explaining the “when it rains, it pours”-ness of Beatles songs in Across the Universe and Yesterday.
It also made the use of “All You Need is Love” in the last episode of The Prisoner feel even weirder and creepier.