Drive My Car shows that art can be a panacea for everyday problems. It is a film gem that should redefine the canon of on-screen beauty.
If I had to briefly summarize Drive My Car, I would call this film a mastery of subtlety. This is one of those on-screen stories that tries to capture the seemingly unattainable beauty of life; great in its intimacy, universal in its infinitely intimate message. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi takes on the prose of Haruki Murakami, and this tandem of magicians is also helped by Anton Chekhov, whose Uncle Vanya is of fundamental importance for the whole story. Literary witchcraft allows the director to create, on the one hand, a triumphant song about existence and, on the other hand, an elegy, a mournful rhapsody that will take the viewer into a whirlwind of emotional traumas, the need to come to terms with the past and an overwhelming emptiness. Thanks to the slow narrative, we can permeate the world over which the creator-demiurge draws a treatise on humanity in its purest form and Art with a capital "S". It is a world of at first glance unnoticeable contrasts and nuances, at times appearing like the biblical Tower of Babel. People persist in misunderstanding - both themselves and the people they meet on their way. The destruction of interpersonal communication has a literal and symbolic dimension, since the main part of the action takes place in Hiroshima. So how do you find a way out of reality suspended between light and dark? The answer is simple; repeating after Chekhov: "Well, you have to live".
After the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the bodies of some of the victims were vaporized by the nuclear blast; they left only shadows reflected on the sidewalks and stairs. This piercing sight seems to be a perfect metaphor for what Drive My Car at its deepest level de facto is - a poignant tale of people stuck in an emotional twilight, whose past traumas won't go away. They are hidden, transferred and petrified in everyday life, becoming part of the code of conduct and the driving force behind the actions of the heroes. Following the footsteps of Murakami and Chekhov, Hamaguchi, however, does not want to be a fatalist; in his film, the ghosts and ghosts of the past circle right next to the hymn of praise to life. The road to liberation from this reality leads through art and self-acceptance. I will not be particularly revealing if I say that Drive My Car is one of the best allegories of artistic catharsis in the 21st century cinema, and also resulting directly from the phenomenal scenario. I do not remember when on the big screen I watched such perfectly written characters and listened to such carefully pampered dialogues. After all, language and communication noises are separate characters in this story, which is best seen in the brilliant dinner scene, where Yusuke and Misaki host the main organizer of the festival and his wife, who is unable to speak. My God, this sequence seems to weigh more than the entire universe - carved out in word, yet strikingly silent. Besides, Hamaguchi has more scenes-monuments for viewers to recall, for example, smoking in the car that is magical in its power and the theatrical finale of Uncle Vanya.
In Drive My Car, the most important thing is not the universal moral of the story sustained by the literary firmament, but the non-obvious path leading to it. This long, screen journey of night into days would not be surrounded by such an aura of wonder if it were not for the exquisite framing and, without exception, first-class acting performances; After all, the cast members had a full range of opportunities to show off in sequences based on theatrical convention or using the benefits of road cinema. Hamaguchi thoroughly studies the anatomy of interpersonal relations, and later introduces them to a collision trajectory with the world of art. Once upon a time in Hiroshima, the roar of the most monstrous weapon of civilization was heard. Today they are rather subtle words and all that has been contained in between them. To paraphrase Chekhov: there was a time when we suffered, we cried and we felt bitter. Now, however, we can see "bright, good, beautiful life" and rest. How good that "long series of days and lingering evenings" we can spend, finding respite in such works as Drive My Car. Without them, "our hour" would probably be closer.