Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's 'Drive My Car' Reviewed by Jean-Jacques Manzanera

Jean-Jacques Manzanera reviews Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's film 'Drive My Car' (2021, 179 min), released in French theaters on August 18, 2021. Adapted from a Haruki Murakami short story, the film weaves a narrative around a Saab 900, a Chekhov play, and loss. Manzanera argues that 'Drive My Car' marks a turning point in Hamaguchi's career, akin to Hou Hsiao-hsien's 'A City of Sadness' (1989) or Nuri Bilge Ceylan's 'Once Upon a Time in Anatolia' (2011). The opening scene shows a couple in bed, later revealed to be Oto, a TV screenwriter, and Yusuke, an actor and theater director. Their daughter died years earlier. After an affair and Oto's sudden death, Yusuke is invited to direct Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' at a festival in Hiroshima. He cannot drive and is assigned a taciturn young driver, Misaki. Yusuke stages the play multilingually (Japanese, Korean, sign language) using the 'Italian' method of neutral reading. The young actor playing Vanya may have been Oto's lover. The film's second half is structured around the play's rehearsal, echoing John Cassavetes' 'Opening Night' (1978) and Jacques Rivette's 'La Bande des quatre' (1989). Key scenes occur in and around the car, reminiscent of Abbas Kiarostami's work. The film culminates in Sonia's final monologue, 'We must live,' offering catharsis. Manzanera praises Hamaguchi as a 'tranquil inventor of forms' who transcends his literary source.