ARCHIVED ONLINE EVENT - Japan Society Film Club: Drive My Car directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Date
Wednesday 5 January 2022
Time
6.30pm

Booking Details
Free - Booking essential
Priority for Japan Society Members

Please remember to watch the film in advance.  
Drive My Car is available to watch on cinemas across the UK/Ireland from 19 November 2021 and on Modern Films virtual screen from 20 December 2021 for £9.99.

Do you love Japanese film classics, anime or contemporary cinema stories? Do you miss Japan and want to see it at least on screen? Would you like to learn and discuss about Japanese culture and society? Join us for the new Japan Society Film Club where we will chat online about films and Japan in an informal atmosphere.

For our first Film Club of 2022 we invite you to watch a contemporary classic, the touching film Drive My Car directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi in 2021.

Drive my Car (ドライブ・マイ・カー, 2001) is a touching film about loss, regret, and acceptance. Based on the short story of the same name by Haruki Murakami from his 2014 collection Men Without Women, the film focuses on stage actor and director Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) who suddenly loses his wife Oto (Reika Kirishima), a TV screenwriter. Two years later he is invited to direct a production of Uncle Vanya (Anton Chekhov) at a theatre festival in Hiroshima. The festival assigns him a chauffeur, Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a taciturn young woman who skilfully drives his beloved car. As they spend time together, both are forced to confront painful truths dredged up from his past, and Yusuke begins to face the haunting mysteries his wife left behind. Drive My Car won three prizes at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, including Best Screenplay, and has been selected as Japan’s official entry for the 2022 Academy Awards.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi (1978-) is a Japanese director and screenwriter. After graduating from the University of Tokyo, Hamaguchi worked in the commercial film industry for a number of years before entering the graduate program in film at Tokyo University of the Arts. His graduation film Passion was selected for competition at Tokyo Filmex in 2008. Following this film, he moved to the documentary field, making a three-part documentary about 3.11’s tsunami survivors directed alongside Ko Sakai. In 2015 Hamaguchi released the 5-hour long film Happy Hour about a group of female friends in their 30s. The film came out of an improvisational acting workshop he held for non-professionals, with many of the film's performers having participated in the workshop. The film was screened at numerous film festivals and the four lead actresses shared the Best Actress award at the 2015 Locarno Film Festival. In recent years, two of Hamaguchi's films have been selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival, Asako I & II (2018) and Drive My Car (2021). Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy was also selected in 2021 for the Berlin Film Festival, where it was awarded the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize.

Japan Society Film Clubs will take place on the first Wednesday of the month. We will recommend a film to watch in advance and meet online to discuss. Films are often available online for free, to rent or with subscription, on DVD/Blu Ray or on BFI player. When possible, we will invite film experts to introduce and lead the discussion, but the event is open to all and we encourage participants to freely express their opinions and feelings about the films.

If you have any questions, please call the Japan Society office on 020 3075 1996 or email events@japansociety.org.uk.

Booking Info