Drive My Car

    Hidetoshi Nishijima and Toko Miura in “Drive My Car.” Bitters End photo via IMDB

A red Saab 900 Turbo is a co-star as much as any of the human actors in Japan's powerfully moving “Drive My Car.” It won the Academy Award Sunday for best international feature amid nominations including best picture, best adapted screenplay and best director Ryusuki Hamaguchi.

In the film's almost three hour run time, the Saab is in more than half the scenes. Many were shot inside the vehicle, moving in traffic. But a lot were shot from outside, from helicopters, from other vehicles or from the Saab itself, front or rear, mostly on picturesque roadways in and outside Hiroshima.

The effect captures mesmerizing tranquility, the opposite of road rage. Driving a car – navigating a pathway through life – is one of the endless metaphors in the script adapted from “Men Without Women,” a short story collection by Haruku Murakami.

Hidetoshi Nishijima plays renowned theatrical actor and director Yusake Kafuku, whose psycho-sexual relationship with his fascinating wife Oto (Reika Krishima) provides a 40-minute “prologue” before the opening credits. Oto's untimely death sends her husband into a paralyzing depression; he's still grieving two years later when a Hiroshima theater festival invites him to be director-in-residence for a production of Anton Chekov's classic “Uncle Vanya.” 

Mr. Kafuku requests lodging in a hotel an hour away from the theater. It's his practice to use his drive time to memorize lines and practice with a cassette tape in the car. But on arriving he learns that, thanks to a previous accident involving an artist in residence, festival insurance requires that he have a driver. The festival has given that job to a stony faced, practically mute young woman named Misaki Watari (Toko Miura). Her unchanging expression with a scar across one cheek suggests the soul she masks is as wounded as his.

The plot unfolds in layers. Mr. Kafuku's previous life with his wife is reminiscent of the classic “Scheherazade” in which a woman spellbinds her emperor with a bedtime story each night. The frank eroticism of these tales provides pathways into mysterious places deep within her.

Once Kafuku gets to Hiroshima, the production of “Uncle Vanya” becomes the story within the story. The cast members – especially a hotheaded former TV star who had an affair with the director's wife, and a mute Korean actress who delivers her lines in sign language add to the layers unfolding as the movie goes on. 

“Uncle Vanya,” from the first table read to the recordings on the cassette player, adds counterpoint. As Mr. Kafuku tells a cast member, performing Chekov is a soul-bearing act, not for the weak or the dishonest. The lines of dialogue prove to be prophetic, offering their own comments on what's happening in real time.

“Drive My Car” is the opposite of a movie from the Marvel Universe. Its “action” is mostly left to the Saab. The characters have more important business at land, venturing into realms of damaged souls, finding the strengths necessary to endure and live on.

In subtitled Japanese and other Asian languages, “Drive My Car” is one of those movies you watch for a long time wondering what it's about, what's going on. This may sound like a recipe for boring, but it has the opposite effect. What it's about is everything. Despite the language barriers, those characters onscreen are us, sparking recognition, empathy and deep caring.

For as much as I loved “CODA” and reveled in all its Oscar glories Sunday night, “Drive My Car” touched a place in my heart just as profound, just as true. Every time a clip was played during the ceremony, I found myself smiling, happy to see the characters again.

Speaking of the Oscars, it feels unfortunate that the Big Slap was the story of the night, rather than the messages of hope and love offered by “CODA” and “Drive My Car.” But those films offered their own prescient commentaries on the evening's developments.

In the clip from “CODA” that ran in this blog yesterday, beguiling Emilia Jones sings and signs Joni Mitchell's immortal lyrics from “Both Sides Now”:

But now it's just another show
And you leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know
Don't give yourself away

In “Drive My Car,” director Kafuku advises his hot-headed leading man that out-of-control emotions can actually be beneficial to an actor. But in real life, just the opposite.

You listening, Will?