'Drive My Car' Knows Loss in Every Language, and Inspires Healing Too
Photo courtesy of Janus Films
This discussion contains spoilers for Drive My Car.
These last few years, no soul has escaped untouched by grief. There can never be a single story that captures loss’ suddenness and complexity as a universal experience, but Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 2021 film Drive My Car — this year’s Best Picture nominee and Best International Film winner at the Academy Awards — sure comes close.
Before you’re deterred by the idea of sitting through a three-hour exploration of grief based on a 30 page Haruki Murakami story, you should know that this story is more about living than it is about mourning (and by the end of the film, it is a refreshing contrast to a couple of other semi-bleak Best Picture endings).
As a person of color who has been surviving the ongoing pandemic, I no longer possess the bandwidth for new stories on futility and trauma without some prospect of healing or transformation. So, watching Hamaguchi’s characters slowly unfold the ways art and company can alleviate pain did not disappoint my need for fresh air, as it also left me with a rare feeling: hopeful contentment.
The movie follows actor and director Yusuke Kafuku. After the sudden passing of his wife, Oto, Kafuku is incapacitated, unable to continue performing. Later, a residency in Hiroshima — where Kafuku is to direct a multilingual adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya — allows him to form an unlikely kinship with his driver, a young woman named Misaki Watari who, in her own way, is also processing her mother's death.
The experimental nature of Kafuku’s play is the main vehicle for Hamaguchi’s larger claim about human connection. Every actor cast in Uncle Vanya speaks a different language and performs in their native tongue on stage — Tagalog, Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean Sign Language. Most of the actors do not understand the dialogue of their castmates, yet we witness extremely intimate moments between those cast members. An undeniable connection is made — not through the understanding of words and phrases, but through pure emotional delivery.
Kafuku’s artistic intention is made clear outside of the play’s rehearsals, as he questions his relationship with his wife and her infidelity, eventually coming to terms with the fact that he will never be able to understand her entirely. Drive My Car articulates the sorrow in not only mourning someone, but also everything that is lost with them — what we do not know yet, and what we seemingly never will. What are we to do with all the questions, all the love we still have for them? There is no singular resolution.
The answer Kafuku gives Watari at the site of her mother’s death is to simply keep living — keep living with their memory and love. To live in peace with the unknown is all we can and have to do. To watch the play unfold is enough; to let the poetry of others “move our bodies like they wouldn't before,” is enough. Just as the cast of Uncle Vanya is not meant to fully understand the entire play, we are not meant to fully understand each other, letting love and affection fill the space between us regardless.
In this cultural shift we are all witnessing and processing, I cannot prioritize the need for transformative works in media enough; the push for thoughtful adaptations like Drive My Car should persist. Surface reflections of sorrow and hopelessness are not sustainable, especially for the continued survival of those who are left living after the dead. ♦