Drive My Car

directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi - 9/10

“If you really want to look at someone, then your only option is to look at yourself squarely and deeply.”

There are truths, and there are secrets. There is conversation, and there is silence. There is movement, and there is stillness. There are beginnings, and there are destinations. There is living, and there is dying.

Drive My Car takes a long, slow route to explore the depth of a grieving period of a young man’s life. The beginning presents us with narrative opposites with little overlap, but our story collapses in on itself as the film continues. The relationships in the film fold into each other, sometimes disintegrating and at other times metamorphosing into something more authentic and more complex. 

Director and writer Ryusuke Hamaguchi composes a fully-formed and complete story that allows the viewer to carry the characters with them - for each individual to decide what happens after the screen turns black. It’s a filmmaking style that requires deeply-rooted care and trust and a mutual promise between creator and consumer. 

The film, shot naturalistically, frequently employs eye-catching reflections and unique compositional parallels. The editing is truly spectacular, and the exemplary technical aspects of the film solidify it as a future classic for years to come. 

Drive My Car’s exploration of grief is presented in a meditative state, using tranquility to communicate gut-wrenching emotions. As the film's events continue to worsen, the serenity remains and increases the severity of these devastating events. These polar themes from the beginning morph and reflect each other, and the characters begin to recognize that they must turn their care for each other inward to express it truly. As more of these oppositions deteriorate, the world of our characters becomes a paradoxical state - the story entirely collapses in on itself as the complexity of the characters’ lives grows. 

Still, there are truths, and there are secrets. There is conversation, and there is silence. There is movement, and there is stillness. There are beginnings, and there are destinations. There is living, and there is dying. But there is also a whole world in between.

“Those who survive keep thinking about the dead… what can we do? We must go on with our lives.” 

Top Films of 2021 Update: Drive My Car now places at #10 on my list.

Drive My Car was released on November 21, 2021 and is currently streaming on HBO Max.