A theater director grieving his wife's death travels to Hiroshima to stage a multilingual production of Uncle Vanya. His assigned driver is a young woman carrying her own unspoken loss, and she becomes his unexpected companion in grief. Hamaguchi's film is a 3-hour study of what we tell ourselves about the people we loved.
Drive My Car is a 2021 drama film directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (3 narrative and 1 psychology), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Stalker uses several of the same techniques.
Moving the film at the slow, deliberate pace of a ritual, with long takes, few cuts and unhurried camera moves. The patience builds dread and gives each step the weight of a ceremony.
How this film uses it
Hamaguchi opens with a 40-minute prologue before the title card appears, and the rhythm never hurries after that. The length of the film makes a point: grief and understanding take time.
Where to see it
The extended prologue. It follows Kafuku and his wife Oto up to her sudden death, before the film's official story begins, and it doesn't behave like an opening at all.
Running the film longer than its genre normally needs, on purpose. The extra time lets you live with the characters, so the emotional payoff feels in proportion to the wait.
How this film uses it
At nearly 3 hours, Drive My Car is hard to summarize. Each car journey, each rehearsal and each meal adds to a picture of grief that could not exist in a shorter film.
Where to see it
The repeated car journeys between Kafuku's apartment and the theater. The car becomes a place for confession, where both characters gradually drop their protective silences.
Watching events from a measured distance with no swelling music, tear-jerking close-ups or showy camera moves. The film trusts what happens to carry the weight on its own.
How this film uses it
Hamaguchi shows you Kafuku watching his wife's infidelity without confronting her. He shows him staging rehearsals where he works out his grief, and riding in silence. The portrait is put together from what goes unsaid.
Where to see it
Kafuku in the backseat as Misaki drives through the Hiroshima night. You can see both faces in the rearview mirror. Nothing is said between them, and everything is still there.
Having a character invent and keep up a false version of reality to shield someone they love, or themselves, from a truth too painful to bear. The lie is a way to survive.
How this film uses it
Kafuku has not dealt with his grief over his wife's infidelity and death, so he pours it into staging Uncle Vanya. The theater production is a controlled space. There, he can handle grief indirectly, through the pain other people perform.
Where to see it
Kafuku directing the actors through Vanya's most devastated speeches. The emotion in the play does the grieving he can't do outside the rehearsal room.
Questions
Drive My Car: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Drive My Car use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Drive My Car (2021): Ceremonial Pacing, Slow Build Runtime, Observational Restraint and Protective Fiction.
Who directed Drive My Car?
Ryusuke Hamaguchi directed Drive My Car, released in 2021. CineCode also covers Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021).
What films are similar to Drive My Car?
Films that share techniques with Drive My Car include Stalker (1979), The Elephant Man (1980), Andrei Rublev (1966), A Ghost Story (2017).
