[KineJapan] Drive My Car with Eng subtitles

[Anne McKnight]

Related to the query about viewing Drive My Car in theatres is this IndieWire piece. It brought up a number of interesting things about distribution to explain the “phenomenon.” One of which was Hamaguchi’s apparent insistence to show it only in theatres. It has come, gone, and come again to local art houses near me. An unusual pattern.

https://www.indiewire.com/2022/02/drive-my-car-success-sideshow-criterion-1234698888/?fbclid=IwAR1SsMrLQZvhUQIe7b7MXF9ycjbl_coU3btdoj2yeos8L1PzeP3xpcXvBc4

My friend who is a fixer (for Japanese networks) here thought that Hamaguchi must have a hell of a publicist. That seems very possible indeed; all the press is positive, so far, in ways that are unlike attention to and praise for other arthouse films I have seen buoyed by critical praise in recent years.

Departing from that industry focus, in some way, I guess I am not ready to totally succumb to looking at the industry angles in order to understand the success/appeal of a film. Obviously there is a culture-industry framework to think of, but I also think that the film taps into a sense of nomadism (perhaps there is a better word, but for lack of it at the moment and again cooked up in conversation with a friend about urban life and its transiences, new nomadism) and upheaval that is very Covid-era. I wonder if the multiple language feature also dovetails well with the drifting—from Tokyo bougie life (Minato, I think), to Hiroshima, to Hokkaido, to Korea. It’s an upgraded two-class version of Nomadland, in a way, different than a plain road movie. Highly sentimental, but open-ended, without a deterministic sense of inherited past.

I didn't feel that strongly about the film, either way, but appreciated its sense of drift. The Murakami story is much more fixed, homosocially based, and its first-person narrator narrow and quite literally provincial (in its Tokyo way) in ways that, perhaps, the character in Drive My Car is not, and the film certainly is not.   I was pleasantly surprised to see traces of Covid referenced in the film—masks and Covid-era shopping in the last, set-in-Korea sequence. I can’t think of a network or streaming show on US TV, or a film, that even acknowledges this basic social reality that has been with us for nearly 2 years. (I have not tried that hard, tho, to be comprehensive…). For that alone, I thought the film stood out.



> On Feb 15, 2022, at 6:30, Naguib Razak via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
> 
> Dear KineJapaners,
> 
> Would anyone know if it is possible to watch Drive My Car with English subtitles anywhere in Tokyo? 
> I understand the film is still currently in theaters now here. 
> 
> Apologies if this has been addressed earlier.
> 
> Regards,
> Naguib
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> _______________________________________________
> KineJapan mailing list
> KineJapan at mailman.yale.edu
> https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/kinejapan

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