Drive My Car is a Jmovie that won a lot of awards but it has been in my backburner for a long time because of 2 reasons. First is that it is a 3 hour movie. That is huge investment if the movie sucked. Second reason is that I don't trust awards. Manbiki Kazoku deserved a lot of awards and I have seen my share of award winning movies like Koibitotachi and my years of Jmovie watching is making my spider sense tingle.
Drive My Car starts off with a confusing introduction. We are introduced to Nishijima Hidetoshi and Kirishima Reiko as husband and wife. They seem to be reciting a script or making a script up as when they are in bed and driving to work.
We learn that Nishijima is an actor and Kirishima is an writer. Nishijima is acting in a play where the actors are speaking in various languages like those Hong Kong movies where one guy speaks in Cantonese and one in Mandarin and they pretend to understand each other. Artsy movie alert #1. As someone who speaks multiple languages I think it is a stupid and pretentious idea.
We then learn that Nishijima and his Kirishima had a daughter who had passed away and the Kirishima is cheating with an actor and Nishijima knows about it. Kirishima was about to tell Nishijima something important when she passes away.
Two years later, Nishijima is directing a multi lingual stage drama in beautiful Hiroshima and he drives his car there. Due to a previous incident, Nishijima is forbidden to drive by theatre management and is assigned a driver played by Miura Toko. It takes bloody 40 minutes before the movie gets to this part.
Drive My Car is so effing slow. If you want to do a 3 hour movie, it is better have the pacing of Love Exposure. Constant stuff happening. The movie could have easily been edited to 2 hours. Various times I wanted to just quit and ended up pausing the movie many times. I can't imagine watching this in the cinema.
It is a movie about loss and guilt dressed up in an artsy sheen. The acting is nothing special. The multi lingual thing is annoying. I don't know why the Taiwanese character speaks in English but acts in Mandarin. She should be acting in English. I see what the movie is going for but I don't feel anything. Miura Toko as the driver is ok and I enjoyed the Hiroshima countryside but this feels like Koibitotachi all over again. Waste of 3 hours of my time.
The director directed Asako 1 & 2 aka Netemo Sametemo which was ok. I'm pretty sure I have Wife of a Spy. Don't bloody trust awards because sometimes they cater to movies that are too artsy for me. Avoid this movie that did not have to be 3 hours.
i feel like asian-americans loved this movie for idea of pan-asianism
ReplyDeleteI avoided this movie for the length and also for the artsy feel, but also cuz I read the original Murakami short story and didn't think it needed to be adapted to a three-hour film.
ReplyDeleteThis movie definitely deserved an award. (the best trailer)
ReplyDeleteIt evoked Tony Takintani vibe, which I love. Coupled that with Saab 900, I had watch it.
I thought the movie was great (probably because I fell asleep after 30 minutes, and work up 2 hours lateR)
Jung,
I had a feeling you were going to hate this movie (I've been following your blog for yrs and love many of your recs, some hidden gems like Nihon boro yado kikko I would never have found on my own) and I knew it. Lol. I watched it in theater and it was one of the most excruciating 3 hrs of life. I do like some artsy movies but the problem w a lot of them is they tend to be very pretentious like you said. That monologuing when Okada Masaki preached the main character's ears off was one of the most cringe-worthy scenes in cinema I've ever seen. the multilingual cr*p was mind-boggling. like why?!?! And the whole driving to Hokkaido and coming to the climax of acceptance of guilt was as cliche as it gets. I don't get Miura Toko's hype, I feel like she just turns off her expressions and turns into a stone *inner conflicts and feelings blah blah blah* I'm glad you hate it as much as I did, there were quite a few people who were offended when I criticized it bc I "wouldn't be able to make a movie the way Hamaguchi did". lmao.
ReplyDeletealso it seems like your blog reads a lot more smoothly on mobile than it does computer. just a tip for your readers. I couldn't comment on my computer and had to use my phone.
Yep, too slow to get going... then too slow an ending. Loved the middle though.
ReplyDelete