Drive My Car Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Drive My Car Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov July 11, 2022

Ryusuke Hamaguchi's "Drive My Car" (2021) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the release include exclusive new interview with Ryusuke Hamaguchi; behind the scenes featurette; footage from press event held at the Cannes Film Festival; and original theatrical trailer. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

After his flight is canceled, veteran actor and theater director Yusuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima) returns to his home and discovers his wife, Oto (Reika Kirishima), in the arms of her secret lover. For a minute or so he observes their naked bodies, but chooses not to confront them. Then he quietly leaves and heads back to his car, an old Saab 900, visibly struggling to control the avalanche of thoughts his mind has unleashed. Not too long after that, a massive brain hemorrhage kills his wife and resets his entire life.

Two years later, Yusuke heads to Hiroshima to stage a contemporary production of Anton Chekhov’s classic play Uncle Vanya for a local festival. He is enthusiastically welcomed by the festival’s organizers and informed that all of his preliminary requirements have been met. However, his desire to drive his car from the house where he would stay to the venue where he would direct the play causes very awkward tension between the two sides. The festival’s organizers declare that Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a woman in her late twenties, has been hired to be his personal chauffeur and her contract cannot be canceled. Yusuke attempts to explain that he does not want the service because for years he has been using his car as his private working studio where he would listen to tape recordings, study and memorize the texts and rhythms of the plays he is hired to do. The festival’s organizers refuse to accommodate Yusuke and he reluctantly hands the keys to his car to Misaki.

The audition process proves far more challenging than anticipated and at the end of it, Yusuke forces a very talented but inexperienced young actor (Masaki Okada) to accept the main part in the play. A mute and initially quite shy Korean girl and an ambitious Taiwanese girl also join the cast even though both would require the help of translators.

As Yusuke and the actors become comfortable with each other the play acquires proper shape and identity, but the emotions that are channeled through its drama bring back memories of Oto as well. Some of these memories as well as off-stage interactions with various actors then motivate Yusuke to begin reevaluating his entire system of beliefs.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Oscar-winning film Drive My Car has a humongous prologue that almost certainly would have made Jacques Rivette proud. (It is well over forty minutes long). In fact, if one tries really, really hard, one may even conclude that Drive My Car was conceived as a very loose Japanese variation of Rivette’s Va Savoir (Who Knows?). The exact thematic similarities may not be there, but that very particular eagerness to prove that the supposedly big and obvious line which separates cinema and theater may actually be extremely small and surprisingly flexible that kept reappearing in Rivette’s films certainly is.

Unfortunately, Hamaguchi’s ability to blend theatrical and cinematic qualities while delving deep into the human psyche still needs a lot of serious fine-tunning. Indeed, there is plenty of promising material in Drive My Car where Hamaguchi effectively connects visuals with feelings and emotions, but the bigger picture where they need to fit in and consequently make the audience ponder much more serious themes and universal truths remain elusive. This is the biggest problem of Drive My Car. It is a very long film that very quickly creates the impression that it needs a lot of time to arrive at obvious conclusions.

The cast is good but is often mismanaged. For example, as it is shot the tension between Nishijima and Okada quite simply does not look right because the emotional vulnerability of the former is supposed to be extremely well protected by his intellect. It could have been legit if Okada somehow exposes a crucial weakness in it, but such is missing. In fact, the car player was a lot more successful in doing precisely that). Miura often looks very good as well, but instead of looking organic her friendship with Nishijima feels like a strange test for both parties.

There are some fantastic panoramic shots from Hiroshima and a couple of other urban areas, but they are not enough to praise the film.

Drive My Car Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Drive My Car arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.

The following text appears inside the leaflet that is provided with this Blu-ray release:

"The film was shot on an ARRI ALEXA Mini LF camera and completed in a fully digital workflow with a fully digital soundtrack. The 5.1 surround audio for this release was mastered from the original digital audio master files.

Colorist: Yumeto Kitayama/Imagica, Tokyo."

Your initial impression will be that Drive My Car looks stunning in high-definition, as it should, given its digital roots. However, there are quite a few darker sequences that reveal minor but annoying anomalies. For example, very early into the film some of the indoor footage reveals artifacts and other encoding anomalies that interfere with existing detail. You can see an example in screencapture #7. While technically different, on my system the visual effect was very similar to the posterization I observed on the recent restoration of The Great Silence. Other similar but smaller blockiness pops up throughout the film as well. See example in screencapture #18. During daylight footage delineation, clarity, sharpness, and especially depth can be enormously impressive. As a result, large panoramic shots can look stunning, almost like digital postcards. Though the film has a modern grade that promotes familiar stylization choices, there are fantastic ranges of colors as well. Image stability is outstanding. So, even though a lot of viewers will most likely be quite happy with the technical presentation, I think that encoding optimizations should have been made to avoid the issues that are described above. My score is 3.25/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player to access its content).

Drive My Car Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (with small portions of English, Mandarin, German, and Korean). Optional English and English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

As confirmed in the video section, the film has a fully digital soundtrack, which the lossless audio replicates. I thought that clarity, sharpness, and balance were excellent. The music produces some minor contrasts, but the overall dynamic range of the audio is quite modest.

Drive My Car Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - an original U.S. theatrical trailer for Drive My Car. In Japanese, with English subtitles and text (2 min).

• Cannes Press Conference - presented here is footage from the press event that followed the international premiere of Drive My Car at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021. Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, actors Sonia Yuan, Toko Miura and Reika Kirishima, and producer Teruhisa Yamamoto are on the stage and answer various questions about the production of the film, its story, and characters. In English, French, and Japanese, with English audio translation. (44 min).

• Ryusuke Hamaguchi - in this exclusive new interview, Ryusuke Hamaguchi discusses his background, the influence Kiyoshi Kurosawa and his work had on him, the crucial role realism has in his work, Haruki Murakami's short story that inspired Drive My Car, and the stylistic appearance of the film. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles. (26 min).

• Behind the Scenes - this featurette contains footage shot by producer Terushisa Yamamoto during the filming of Drive My Car and features interviews with various cast members. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles. (36 min).

• Leaflet - an illustrated leaflet featuring critic Bryan Washington's essay "Grace Notes" and technical credits.

Drive My Car Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The manner in which Ryusuke Hamaguchi tried to blend theatrical and cinematic qualities while delving deep into the human psyche with his Oscar-winning film Drive My Car reminded me of Jacques Rivette's work. However, I will go against the current popular consensus and say that it will take some time before Hamaguchi can be compared to Rivette. His instincts are good, but his work needs more fine-tuning. Drive My Car features good performances from several very talented actors and produces some rather striking panoramic visuals, but I must admit that it tested my patience. If your take on the film is drastically different Criterion's upcoming release should be on your radar, but I would recommend that you find a way to test it first because in the video department some things could have been handled a little better. RENT IT.