There are so many themes and mysteries in Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s three-hour epic, Drive my Car, that you’ll be thinking about it for days after you finish it. This is a long, ponderous film, but I never felt bored. Rather, this is one of those films that lets you know right up front that there’s something quite profound going on under the surface and that you’ll have to do some hard work to figure out what it is.
Drive my Car is immediately captivating visually. Much of the photography centres on an old and very well-kept red Saab car that stands in stark contrast to all the grey highways and the generic white and grey vehicles that fill the highways and byways of Japan. The interior decor of the protagonist, too, is mesmerizing; the perfect setting for a man immersed in the arts, with beautiful furniture and a beautiful high end stereo and record player.
The relationship between the main character, Kafuku, and his wife Oto may also stir feelings of jealousy. He’s an actor and director for the stage, while she is a former actress who’s now a successful screenwriter. The two share stories and seem to have a remarkably strong and intimate bond.
But things start to go downhill when, after seeing something he shouldn’t have seen, Kafuku is in a car accident and is told by his doctor that he’s got an eye affliction that prevents him from seeing properly. He should not, the doctor says, be allowed to drive his beloved Saab any more. This seemingly inconsequential detail in the film turns out to be the keystone to the entire thing. The film, at its heart, is about what we can and cannot see, the different ways we have of looking at things, and the question of whether and to what degree we can be in charge of our own lives; i.e. whether we can see well enough to drive our own cars.
The theme of stories is also central here. It is no accident that Oto and Kafuku are both storytellers. As human beings, we are addicted to stories. They are the only way we have of making sense of our lives. One way of defining human beings is that we are the only creatures who feel this drive to make our lives into stories with beginnings, middles and ends. We also have to share our stories with others, and this seems to be a very deeply rooted drive. When we marry, we join our story with another and try to make the two stories join together as one. What a shock, then, to find that we do not, and perhaps cannot see and know all of our partner’s story. To find that part of their story is hidden from view and being shared with another.
Drive my Car is in large part the story of what happens when that bubble is broken: when one finds that the attempt to make two stories one was simply an illusion. Can we reinterpret the story so that it still makes sense? Can we see it in a different light? Should we blame ourselves for what’s happened?
I’m speaking somewhat cryptically here because to reveal any of the major plot points of the film would be robbing it of its magic. And this is indeed a magical film.
But again, the more one ponders the seemingly disparate details in this film, the more one sees how perfectly united they all are in making a central point. A large part of the film, for example, revolves around an attempt to put on a stage play in several different languages; including sign language. The fundamental difficulty the actors have communicating with each other is both a major factor that’s right on the screen, but also of the major themes: can we really understand each other? Can we really know each other?
Because the film is taking place far from Kafuku’s home, and because he’s not supposed to drive (pace the official reason given by one of the festivals directors), he must be driven by a young woman from a very different background. But, as we come to discover, there are very deep strands of experience that can connect two people who are, in a sense, living in the ruins of a previous life.