When Parasite won the Oscar for best picture in 2020, it was seen as long-overdue recognition of the mastery of South Korean cinema.
Bong Joon-ho’s dark comedy about two families at opposite ends of the country’s social spectrum was the first non-English language production in the 94-year history of the Academy Awards to win in the category.
Having watched its neighbour soak up much of the critical acclaim reserved for east-Asian cinema – and TV series – Japan’s moment could come this month with an understated drama from a director many in Hollywood would have struggled to name until recently.
Drive My Car, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s absorbing epic of grief, connection and art, is the first Japanese film in Oscar history to be nominated for best picture.
His adaptation of a short story of the same name by Haruki Murakami – a perennial, but so far unsuccessful, candidate for the Nobel literature prize – was also nominated for best director, best adapted screenplay and best international feature.
To put Hamaguchi’s achievement into historical context, the last Japanese film-maker to be nominated for best director was the revered Akira Kurosawa, for Ran, 36 years ago.
Hamaguchi’s demanding, protracted work – whose opening credits arrive a full 40 minutes into the three hours – follows Yûsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), an actor and theatre director who finds solace in female chauffeur Misaki Watari (Tôko Miura) after the sudden death of his wife, Oto.
The industry’s awards calendar has augured well for the 43-year-old Hamaguchi, who made his debut as a commercial director just four years ago, having won acclaim for his Tohoku documentary trilogy – co-directed with Ko Sakai – about the human tragedy unleashed by the triple disaster on Japan’s north-east coast in March 2011.
Drive My Car won the Golden Globe for best non-English language film in January and best screenplay at Cannes last year. Earlier this month, it secured a Bafta for best film not in the English language.
“The more I think about this, the less sure I am,” Hamaguchi said in a recent interview in attempting to explain how his film now stands on the brink of making cinematic history.
“But one thing I can say is that this is a very normal movie. It’s about people who have all these different flaws, each trying to have a better life for themselves. Loving someone or something is one way to do that. But when we love someone, one day you lose or separate from that person.
“It’s almost like an oxymoron. That’s sort of the normal aspect of this film, that it’s about the loss and gain of love.”
Since its release last year, a consensus has formed around Drive My Car as a film for our times. Some of it was filmed during the coronavirus pandemic – it ends with its characters in face masks – and, months after the roaring success of Squid Game, it has surely settled the argument over subtitles.
As Phil Hoad wrote in explaining why Drive My Car should win later this month: “This powerful work is the perfect post-pandemic best picture winner, emerging from introspection and trauma with a calm realisation. It steps over Twitter-false dichotomies about blockbusters-v-arthouse with a total sense of absorption in its own purpose. In times like these, it’s art that keeps the motor running.”
Hamaguchi is reportedly looking forward to meeting Steven Spielberg and Denzel Washington in Los Angeles, where Drive My Car will vie for best picture with, among others, Jane Campion’s gothic western The Power of the Dog and Kenneth Branagh’s autobiographical Belfast.
But he has been quick to recognise Bong’s role as a flagbearer for what is turning out to be a golden age for east-Asian film-makers and actors. A year after Parasite won four Academy Awards in major categories, Nomadland, directed by Chloe Zhao, the Chinese-born film-maker, won three Oscars – including best director – and the South Korean actor, Youn Yuh-jung, won the best supporting actress Oscar for her role in Minari.
“I feel that the reason that this film has been accepted around the world is that the actors’ performances and voices are credible,” Hamaguchi said shortly after Drive My Car’s nomination, adding that Bong’s film had smashed through the psychological resistance – and petty preconceptions – that once acted as a barrier to Asian films.
“We, the next generation of Asian films, are going through the door that Parasite has opened,” he said.
