Drive My Car (at Nippertown)

Hidetoshi Nishijima and Toko Miura star in Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car.

Editor's note: In a reprise of their first collaboration in 2020, in which Jan Galligan and David Brickman discussed the film 1917 in a post at Nippertown.com, they now take a look at the highly regarded Japanese film Drive My Car, beginning with Brickman's ruminations:

One thing I like about Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car is that it asks a lot of questions. Is this movie about love, death, family history, or life itself? 

I think the creative process is the hub of the wheel in this film, around which all other themes revolve. The main character, stage actor, and theater director Yūsuke is, above all, an artist, and the film spends a great deal of time exploring his creative process, strange though the process may be.

I like how the narrative represents the power of art to comfort us amid the stress of living our lives. Even the stoic driver is ultimately moved by this power, though at the same time it nearly tears Yūsuke apart – certainly a valid point regarding art.

Few films or stories can bring those concepts home the way this one did for me.

To read the rest, click here.