FULLY IN SPOILER TERRITORY NOW. THE UNINITIATED SHOULD DEFINITELY STAY AWAY
Sabin wrote:
I like Watari as a character. I was referring mainly to the entirety of Watari's backstory. I'm not convinced that she needed a backstory that involved learning to drive at age 12 by driving her mother back and forth to night clubs AND her death in a landslide that could have been avoided AND her mother having a split personality, the second of which was her only friend on Earth.
I don't see those assorted elements of Watari's backstory as being "AND"'s -- I see them as gradually peeled back layers of a single onion: Watari's mother used her at best as a servant, at worst as a slave, kept in line with abuse; knew on some level this was wrong, so created this alternate personality who could dispense love (I'm not entirely sure the term split personality was meant to be taken as literally clinical; it could just have been Watari's way of separating her mother's non-abusive moments from the rest); Watari knows the abusive side of her mother is a danger to her, so she lets her die -- but she also laments the departure of the part of her that's not, and feels guilt for her role in letting it go.
This is especially resonant because it's akin to Kafuku's situation with his wife: he knows so many awful things about her, things that make him not love her at all -- even though he knows he continues to love her deeply, and that she (in her way) absolutely loves him. She even has an equivalent alternate personality: the person she becomes in sexual ecstasy, who tells stories so intimate, so resonant that she can't afford to remember them afterwards, counting on Kafuku to tell them to her as through a third party. I think of these stories as ways she, in disguised metaphors, explains herself to him, and hopes he understands and forgives her.
Sabin wrote:The dinner with the speechless actress is quite a nice moment and it's one that got to be shared between Kafuku and Watari. If memory serves, Kafuku first opens up to Watari about his wife after the dinner where the secret about the producer and the speechless actress is revealed.
It's also important (I'm sure you know this; just highlighting) as the first moment he shows any appreciation for Watari. Neither she nor we, till he answers the dinner-table question, have the slightest idea how he feels about this chauffeured situation into which he's been forced. But he lets loose with such a torrent of praise, Watari literally has to get up from the table, as if she can't deal with the intensity of it. It gets a nice stress-relieving laugh when the speechless woman (Kon Yoon-su, if I'm reading the character list correctly) says, Too bad you never say such nice things about your actors. If Kafuku were to be honest, his answer to that would be, I could only say all that because I wasn't speaking to her directly.
Kafuku and Watari then do begin to communicate more directly, and I think it's because they recognize one another as kindred spirits: they're both people with a ton bottled up inside; it takes moments of extremity for them to let things out. Which is very...Chekhovian. I once heard Chekhov's characters described as people with incredibly intense emotions (especially feelings of love) they have no ability to express normally, so, when they do finally let them out, it's in inappropriate/doomed-to-fail ways. The latter portion of Drive My Car is Kafuku and Watari recognizing they can help one another -- Watari says things to Kafuku that, on some level, she has to realize she could say back to herself (she tells Kafuku he needs to accept Oto's behavior on her terms; surely she needs to see the same is true with her vis a vis her mother). The trip to Watari's now-vanished home seems to be an attempt on both their parts to force themselves to face up to the pasts they've been avoiding; they possibly couldn't have done it on their own, but, as a (temporary) team,they can push one another to deal with it.
I had a small issue, early in the film, with the idea of casting the speechless actress. How, I wondered, is the audience supposed to know what she's communicating. It took me watching the final production to fully understand: this was a multi-lingual production to begin with, and people are watching many of the actors translated through titles -- what does it matter if her foreign language is sign language? The power of that final scene from Vanya makes it clear how it could work. Moreover, this is a metaphor that encompasses the entire film: it's about a set of characters who (metaphorically) speak different languages, but who, after proper translation, can learn to communicate and reach some understanding.
Sabin wrote:The more I write about it, the more it really sounds like a great film. I think it's about great things but I never loved it.
We all have things we just respond to more or less, beyond the fact of appreciation. My issues with The Power of the Dog prevented me from the enthusiasm some are expressing here -- despite the fact I appreciate its value. When I get around to posting about Pig, you'll find I was less in line with it than your excited response -- even though I was admiring of elements of it. As the man sang, Different strokes. It doesn't get in the way of interesting discussion.