Yusuke Kafuku, a stage actor and director is happily married to Oto, a screenwriter. However, Oto suddenly dies after leaving behind a secret. Two years later, Kafuku, still unable to fully cope with the loss of his wife, receives an offer to direct a play at a theater festival and drives to Hiroshima in his car. There, he meets Misaki, a reticent woman assigned to become his chauffeur. As they spend time together, Kafuku confronts the mystery of his wife that quietly haunts him. A visualization – more than an adaptation – of Haruki Murakami’s eponymous short story, Drive My Car is a road movie sui generis that travels paths of loneliness, loss, and bereavement, while investigating the deepest meaning of artistic representation as a universal key to understanding human nature.
Drive My Car
Drive My Car
No physical screenings scheduled. |
- Direction: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
- Script: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Oe Takamasa, Haruki Murakami (based on his novel)
- Cinematography: Shinomiya Hidetoshi
- Editing: Azusa Yamazaki
- Sound: Kadoaki Izuta
- Music: Ishibashi Eiko
- Actors: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Toko Miura, Masaki Okada, Reika Kirishima, Park Yurim, Jin Daeyeon
- Production: C&I Entertainment Inc., Culture Entertainment Co. Ltd., Bitters End Inc.
- Producers: Yamamoto Teruhisa
- Costumes: Koketsu Haruki
- Production Design: Seo Hyeonsun
- Sets: Kagamoto Mami
- Make Up: Ichikawa Haruko
- Format: DCP
- Color: Color
- Production Country: Japan
- Production Year: 2021
- Duration: 179'
- Distribution in Greece: ΑΜΑ Films
- Contact: The Match Factory
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi was born in 1978. After graduating from the University of Tokyo, he worked in the film industry for a few years before entering the graduate film program at the Tokyo University of the Arts. His graduation film, Passion, was screened at San Sebastian Film Festival in 2008 as well as the Tokyo FILMeX competition. He has been constantly working on films since then. His film Happy Hour premiered at Locarno and won awards at numerous film festivals. Asako I & II was selected for the competition at Cannes in 2018 and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize in Berlin in 2021. He also wrote the screenplay for Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Wife of a Spy, which won the Silver Lion at Venice in 2020.
Filmography
2008 Passion
2009 I Love Thee for Good (short)
2012 Intimacies
2013 Touching the Skin of Eeriness
2015 Happy Hour
2016 Heaven is Still far Away
2021 Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
2021 Drive My Car
