2/28/2024 0 Comments Drive my car criterionIt is more of a father-daughter dynamic than anything romantic. At first Kafuku is reluctant to hand over his beloved Saab to another driver, but his sponsors insist, and eventually he and the young driver form a bond. The 179 minutes are filled with a few intertwining storylines, most notably the driver Misaki (Toko Miura) assigned to chauffeur Kafuku back and forth from rehearsal. He clearly sees something more, as does the audience, as there was an audible gasp from the crowd in our theater. Nothing pierces the tension more than a scene of Takatsuki’s audition with a young woman in which he gets aggressive towards her, and Kafuku suddenly jolts up to defend her, before the veneer of acting is broken. Their strange relationship is heightened when Takatsuki tells Kafuku at a bar that he was in love with his wife. Takatsuki was cast by Oto in a television show, and now he seeks out a part in Kafuku’s stage production of the Chekhov play Uncle Vanya. When the opening credits finally roll forty-five minutes in, we’re already emotionally enraptured, and the story is just getting started. But the central drama revolves around a love triangle between middle-aged theater director Kafuku, his wife Oto (Reika Kirishima), and a young, handsome up-and-coming star named Takatsuki (Masaki Okada).ĭrive My Car begins with a long prologue that could be a film unto itself. When he’s forced into the backseat by a work-mandated driver who happens to be female, they discover much about each other and themselves. It stars a two-door red Saab that’s, “held up nicely over fifteen years,” which is more than can be said for our male protagonist who drives it, Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima). It is a film about making love and making theater. The fires in Drive My Car are more internal, though no less ravaging. Prolific director Ryusuke Hamaguchi ( Asako I&II) adapts a Haruki Murakami short story into a 3-hour epic, with as much success as Lee Chang-Dong’s Burning (2018). Like what you see here on Hammer to Nail? Why not give just $1.00 per month via Patreon to help keep us going?)Ī slow burn drama, Drive My Car is sexy and sad and more than a little profound. Here, Matt Delman gives a film review of Drive My Car, the latest film from Ryusuke Hamaguchi. (The 2021 New York Film Festival (or NYFF) is in its 59 th iteration and runs September 24-October 10. Below is our review from the 2021 New York Film Festival. It’s currently playing in theaters nationwide. " Drive My Car" headlines a new group of inductees that also includes South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho's brilliant takedown of the livestock industry, "Okja," the 1980 Martin Scorsese masterpiece "Raging Bull," Sofia Coppola's quietly affecting "The Virgin Suicides" (which I'd be remiss if I didn't mention landed on my own personal list of favorite movies), David Lean's "Summertime," and many more.Editors Note: Drive My Caris now nominated for 4 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best International film. The latest update, unveiled earlier today, is certain to thrill fans of a certain winner of the Best International Feature category at this year's Oscars, along with several other instant classics of both recent and older vintage. The Criterion Collection periodically announces a batch of both new and classic films entering the prestigious halls of the home-video distribution company, having most recently revealed that the acclaimed romantic dramedy "The Worst Person in the World" would be ushered into the Criterion Closet in June of this year. Christmas tends to come around only once a year, but movie fanatics and physical media junkies usually find themselves in for a treat just a little more often than that.
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