‘Drive My Car’ makes the most of its long working hours and tells a complete, bizarre, and complex story. After almost every shot, the camera sits on the characters, stretching the scenes with great effect. ‘Drive My Car’ is largely based on the short story of Haruki Murakami’s name in the 2014 collection ‘Men without Women.’
While developing the project, director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi realized that the original short story did not do that. have enough material to produce feature-length, so add sections from two other stories from ‘Men without Women’: ‘Scheherazade’ and ‘Kino.’
He also added a lot of ‘Uncle Vanya’ to the story, which was an easy task because Chekov’s play is already part of Murakami’s novel. A common theme in Murakami’s short stories and ‘Uncle Vanya’ is segregation, which is Hamaguchi’s main theme and ‘Drive My Car’. Now, know about Drive My Car Movie.
Drive My Car: Movie Synopsis
Yûsuke Kafuku is an actress who specializes in acting. His wife, Oto (Reika Kirishima), is a screenwriter. They seem to have a happy, healthy relationship. But deep sorrow is hidden underneath. They lost their daughter to pneumonia in February 2001. She was only four years old at the time. Since then, they have not talked much about having more children.
Oto is not interested, and Kafuku does not see the need to seek something his wife does not want. He must leave the city to do the work of the judges. When his plane is delayed due to a cold wave, he returns home and finds his wife having sex with a young actor Kôshi Takatsuki (Masaki Okada) in their wedding bed. Earlier, after Kafuku played in the multilingual production ‘Waiting for Godot,’ he introduced her to Kôshi, claiming that the latter had often worked with him.
Fearing that he will lose Oto if he deals with her for his unfaithfulness, Kafuku chooses not to say anything to her. You have a small car accident and are told you have glaucoma. Oto is seen in the hospital, working normally and taking full care of her. That night, after returning home, they have sex, and Oto continues the story he first told her in the first scene. At this point in the film, the story seems to show that he is aware that Kafuku is aware of his infidelity.
The next morning, Oto tells Kafuku that she wants to talk to her in the evening. Fearing that their relationship will change irreparably after Oto tells him anything to say, Kafuku delays his return home. When he finally arrived, he found that his wife had died from a hemorrhage. During the next play of ‘Uncle Vanya,’ in which he portrays a character with a title, Kafuku has a mental illness.
Two years passed and Kafuku agreed to stay in Hiroshima. He will direct the production of ‘Uncle Vanya.’ He is traveling with his 1987 red Saab 900 Turbo. However, he is told that he will have to have a driver to accompany him as long as he meets his organizers due to a previous accident caused by another artist.
This is how Kafuku met Misaki Watari (Tôko Miura). As Kafuku finds out, his quiet and steady new driver has an amazing ability in his job. Kafuku’s red Saab is an old car, and there are a lot of things wrong with it. However, Watari quickly learns to drive without causing any discomfort to his passenger.
Meanwhile, Kafuku is starting to emulate multilingual production with actors who can speak Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, and other languages. He also employs a dumb actor who speaks Korean Sign Language. She is later revealed to be the wife of one of the editors. In the role of the main character, Kafuku ends up imitating Takatsuki, his wife’s last lover, which surprises Takatsuki and everyone around them because of the age difference between actor and actor.
Drive My Car: Movie Ending,
The final scene of the Drive My Car film finds Watari in South Korea, and the Covid-19 epidemic is raging. Apparently, some time has passed on the screen between this incident and the previous one. Watari buys a grocer before entering the red Saab, where a dog is waiting for her. The last few shots of the movie involved driving Watari on an open road.
Unlike the first story, where we read about Kafuku’s wife’s infidelity when he talks to Watari, the film’s narrative is straightforward. This should then pose some issues for Hamaguchi and his team as they may not be able to present their second character for up to 45 minutes in the film. They challenged this by extending the presentation to more than 40 minutes.
Like Kafuku, Watari is suffering because of her past. She grew up in the village of Hokkaido. Her father was away, and her mother was abusive. When the ground collapsed, she decided not to save her mother, which has been bothering her ever since. Her mother was suffering from a dissociative identity disorder. She often thought of himself as a young girl named Sachi. According to Watari, any good qualities his mother left behind were in Sachi. When Watari decided not to release her mother before the earthquake, she knew that he had abandoned her and Sachi, and she still did.
Both Watari and Kafuku punish themselves with the best part of the film. The latter believes he is responsible for Oto’s death by not returning immediately. Towards the end of the film, Watari and Kafuku go to the former village and visit the ruins of Watari’s home. Covered with snow, the demolished house looks like the body of a huge beast. Standing next to it, both Watari and Kafuku faced the past and gained the ability to move forward.
The fact that Watari now has a red Saab means that Kafuku gave it to him. The car was a real communication between him and Oto. By releasing it, you show that you have passed. Similarly, Watari has moved to Korea in search of a better life. Now she has a dog and has removed the facial scar that was given to him by her mother. Life will never have its challenges. However, as Watari drives along a wide, bright road, she thinks only of the future.
As mentioned above, Kafuku’s last attempt to play Vanya ended in tragedy. He’s a good enough player to know and admit that he’s not ready to put himself in the pain of translating Chekov’s characters. But this approach to coping with guilt is slowly changing as the film progresses. If one of the reasons for this is Watari, who is the same age as Kafuku’s daughter would be if he were alive, another reason is Takatsuki. Oto’s death left the young man feeling empty.
In addition, his work has been severely damaged by misconduct. It looks like he is looking for Kafuku trying to find himself but he ends up on his way to self-destruction beyond the point of not coming back. Takatsuki has been arrested after the man he beat to death died from his injuries. The editors then told Kafuku that he had two options – to cancel the show completely or play Vanya himself. It seems that after visiting Watari village, Kafuku finds the courage to face the past and embrace the inevitable changes in his life.
As in Chekov’s game, Kafuku used to think that uncertainty is better than experience when it comes to his wife because that way, at least he would have hope. But again, false hope often leads to a standstill. Kafuku learns to climb on top of it. He struggles to expose Vanya after agreeing to a second option. However, by being honest with him and his emotions, he brings credible performance. “Drive My Car.”
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