drive my car looks at the nature of grief through the emotions of restrained characters, but conveys a world of healing that cannot be summed up, but can only be felt in the most ardent, most grateful, Sukanya Verma notes.

Amazing silence envelops drive my car. But as Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s sublime, soulful adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s story from Men without women the anthology silently moves forward, the storm lurking in it is revealed little by little.

The Japanese drama, which has won the Oscar for Best International Film and several other awards since its premiere at Cannes, where it won three awards, including Best Screenplay, is a reflection on grief and art, the process of overcoming one and creating the other.

While his characters are capable of deep passions and unfathomable mystery, their deep-seated sadness and compulsive guilt have kept them silent and immersed in a routine that is soothing, if not healing.

drive my car about two people traveling in a state of repressed agony along a path of connection and catharsis.

One of them is actor and theater director Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima). Two years after his wife’s sudden death, he accepts an offer to direct a multilingual production of Anton Chekhov’s play. Uncle Ivan in Hiroshima.

Kafuku shared an erotic creative process with his writer wife (Reika Kirishima), where they regularly made love and inspired the latter to create a seductive story about a girl fascinated by a teenage boy, whose apartment she often sneaked into when no one was around.

It’s a harmonious, fulfilling relationship bound by personal tragedy that they may or may not have overcome, at least in Kafuku’s mind, until he learns of his wife’s infidelities.

But his silence and her departure rob Kafuka of the chance for closure or peace.

In Hiroshima, he is assigned a chauffeur, a 24-year-old girl named Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), who tends to only speak if spoken to, but immediately recognizes Kafuku’s fondness for his bright red Saab 900 Turbo.

She is an experienced driver, a talent that does not go unnoticed by the owner in the back seat.

Misaki has a tiny scar on her cheek, but the ones she hides inside are very serious in nature.

A listening relationship develops inside a cherished red machine that is both cocoon and character.

Kafuku listens to the taped tapes of his wife’s voice, Misaki listens to how he feels through them, and the car listens to their unspoken grief, as well as the many important and touching confessions that happen when guests are offered a ride.

drive my car travels a lot in and around Hiroshima, a city that has been reborn from the infamous nuclear devastation of World War II. But most of the three-hour, unhurried drama takes place within the theater troupe.

In between auditions and rehearsals, Kafuke continues to emphasize the lyrics until he internalizes them, much to the amusement and dismay of actors of different nationalities.

There is a beautiful scene that proves the power of communication when Kafuke visits the home of a deaf and mute actress (bright Park Yoo Rim) and discovers her relationship with her theater troupe colleague.

However, Kafuke isn’t quite ready to face his fears.

He feigns indifference when one of the actors turns out to be his late wife’s lover.

But, by burdening the young man with the “terrifying” Chekhov title role of Uncle Vanya, he expresses an insult understandable only to his wife and soul mate.

When the character reminds him that he and his deceased half “appreciate the little details that people won’t even notice,” he speaks of the skill of director Hamaguchi, as well as actors Hidetoshi Nishijima and Toko Miura.

The unease around their calm and the volume of unspoken words that imprint their silence is a give and take between the actors in their most human manifestation.

drive my car looks at the nature of grief through the emotions of restrained characters, but conveys a world of healing that cannot be summed up, but can only be felt with the warmest, most grateful.

Drive My Car airs on Mubi.

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