Chekhov is terrifying: Drive My Car (2021)

 

According to Fandango, it’s been 2.5 months since I was at the movies (about the time that Omicron started gathering speed here), to see House of Gucci (a mixed pleasure). In contrast, Drive My Car — an adaptation of some stories from a Haruki Marukami book that surpasses the original, but equally of Uncle Vanya — was a rip-roaring return that reminded me why it’s worth it to go to the movies.

In the first third of the film, we see the relationship between the Kafukus — Yusuke, an actor, and his wife Oto, a screenwriter. In the second two thirds, we see Mr. Kafuku as he directs a production of Vanya at a theater festival in Hiroshima; some mines laid in the relationship then explode during the preparation of the play. The plot, while at times gut-wrenching in its revelations (the reason why I am not giving more details, as I suspect most readers will not have seen it yet), is effectively balanced with insights about acting and theater that are equally comments on life and (especially) loss. The film got much-deserved Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, and it’s clearly the best of the nominated films that I’ve seen. By miles.

One of the film’s main themes is Kafuku’s directorial approach to classic theater, which we see at the beginning. In a scene from Waiting for Godot, each actor in the drama speaks his own native language and the audience follows the whole thing in supertitles. We see an audition for Vanya and a number of rehearsals, which make it clear how a company of actors works to draw out the feelings of the text, first into their own experiences and then into something for the audience. The intentional placement of obstacles to their communication makes them work just that much harder. Kafuku’s approach means that the actors are more than usually dependent on facial expression and gesture to communicate their sentiments and work on each other, in particular as Sonia is played by an actor who signs her lines in Korean Sign Language. But the first step for Kafuku is the text: he wants the words to filter into the actors’ subconscious, so rehearsals involve a very particular style of speech that is almost hypnotic. In a key scene in the film, he tells one of the actors in his play that he can’t perform Chekhov anymore — the lines “drag out the real you.” In the same scene, Kafuku comments on the ideal temperament of the actor.

But privately, Kafuku is still working his way through the Vanya text, with long stretches of him reciting Vanya’s lines against a recording of the play that his wife made. When his routine is complicated by the unwelcome introduction of a driver into his routine, another dimension is added to the script by the new character’s personal narrative, which connects with Kafuku’s on an emotional level. Crisis strikes and the two go on a journey together where both sort out the role that their own failures have played in the losses that torture them both. It was a dollop of cream on top that I think I have now seen a version of the ending scene of Vanya that emotionally convinced me, that didn’t seem like just so much more gaslighting. When Kafuku lets the actor playing Sonia “drag out the real” him, I grasp the real tragedy at the core of the play more fully than I ever have before. As punishing as Kafuku’s approach has been, so rewarding the result for the spectator: Vanya’s mid-life crisis finally seems real, rather than just another manifestation of his self-indulgence.

Yes, it’s three hours long, and yes, it’s heavily subtitled. This didn’t bother me as there isn’t a lot of complicated speech. I also suspect that this film will mean a lot more to people who are familiar with Vanya, although this is probably not a difficulty for Armitage fans.

This is really a film Richard Armitage should see — and not just because of Vanya.

~ by Servetus on March 2, 2022.