After the tragedy, we learn, Kafuku began hanging out with another actor, Takatsuki, who was one of his wife’s lovers. In the course of discussions with his new driver, a 24-year-old woman named Misaki, Kafuku engages in reflections on the death of his wife, on her lack of faithfulness to him during their marriage, and on a subsequent chapter of his past that haunts him. “Drive My Car,” the story, which appears in Murakami’s splendid and resonant collection Men Without Women, is about a middle-aged stage actor named Kafuku who has never been the same since the death of his wife after a long illness. I guess whether Hamaguchi has skillfully transposed elements of the tale in a bold act of artistic license, or has mangled it, depends on your point of view. But critics who rush to praise the movie fail to mention that, for all his bold artiness, Hamaguchi has done a bit of surgery on Murakami’s short story in order to make something approximating a conventional, linear, marketable drama. On many levels Drive My Car is an impressive film, with fine performances and disarming humor amid the pathos. Press play to hear a narrated version of this story, presented by AudioHopper. The consensus among many critics is that he has done something pretty daring in making an arty drama full of meditations on love and loss that takes plenty of time (three hours) to get where it’s going. Hamaguchi is getting plenty of credit for bringing one of Murakami’s highly sensitive, introspective visions to the screen.
Drive My Car, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s adaptation of a short story by Haruki Murakami, has won a Golden Globe award for best foreign film and is now the subject of considerable Oscar buzz.
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