2021 Winner, Drive My Car

Drive My Car

Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Distributed by:  Bitters End

Released: August 2021

Country: Japan

A simple story with an array of complexities, Drive My Car is essentially about communication, or more specifically, our maddening inability to connect to each other in the ways that are most important. The story is of an actor/director who takes it upon himself to stage plays in which the actors speak different languages. The company rehearse their lines over and over to get the timing down, but the younger Japanese lead actor never really understands what all the other actors are saying, as they speak in Korean, Hmong, Cantonese, and even Korean Sign Language. It’s a Tower of Babel production of Chehov’s Uncle Vanya, a story about the wasting of life and love, which in many ways mirrors the events of Drive My Car.

Actor/Director Kafuku and Driver Misaki

Yūsuke Kafuku is the famed actor/director, the ultimate professional who seems to be walking through his life without aim. A tragedy from the past has caused a deep wound in his marriage to his beautiful and equally artistic wife, Oto. While the two are connected deeply, out of love and possibly out of the tragedy they shared, there is a wall between them, an inability to connect to each other in the ways that are most important. One way Oto does show her love is to create cassette tapes of dialogue for her husband, so that he can listen to the lines of other actors as he drives to and from work, with blanks left for him to speak in order to practice the play’s timing.

Kafuku agrees to direct Uncle Vanya for a theater company in Hiroshima, stipulating that the company obtain for him a hotel about an hour away from the theater so that he can drive his prized red Saab to and from each day, and thus be able to listen to his cassettes and perfect the production. However, the company tells him that for because of a past incident, the company requires that a hired driver be used to drive Kafuku each day. Kafuku is reluctant to cede control of the car, but sees that the hired driver, Misaki, a somewhat emotionally damaged 23-year old woman, is more than up to the task.

Another theme of the film is about letting go. The characters tend to be unable or unwilling to address their problems and because of this, they keep them inside as if their sufferings are treasured. We all do this and know others who do. And in seeing the Kafuku, Misaki, and other characters engage in this sort of self-damaging, or at least non-productive, behavior, we want to go up to them and shake some sense into them. They are good people who for one reason or another choose to hang onto what bogs them down.

From the play Uncle Vanya

Some two hour films seem like three; this was a three hour one that seemed like two. The director, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, certainly earned his Best Director Oscar nomination for putting all these moving parts into one flowing story and giving us great visuals to look at along the way. Drive My Car has that rare quality in a film of making you think about it long after you are done watching it. The concept of thoughtfully saying what you mean and listening to what the other person is really saying a lesson for our times. More timeless is the need to let go—whether it’s letting somone else drive, forgiving someone who wronged you, or giving up that scar that represents the hurt you hold onto.

The Title: Japanese: ドライブ・マイ・カー, or: Doraibu Mai Kā

Culture: Hamaguchi uses culture and language masterfully to underscore his themes. The multilingual aspect of Kufuku’s productions are almost comical, as the actors have to pretend to understand what the other characters are saying. Featured are the play Waiting for Godot, by Irish playwright Samuel Becket, and Uncle Vanya, by Russian author Anton Chekov, and there are parallels between the characters of Chekov’ play and the characters in the film, much like 2017 winner from Iran, The Salesman. Subtly, even the titular car has meaning—Kufuku drives his pristine red Saab, which has its wheel on the left side of the car, through Japan, where oddly enough they drive on the left.

Agenda danger: There are layers upon layers of meaning in this profound movie but refreshingly, nothing overtly political.

Best Picture that year: CODA

Rating: Parasite won Best Picture a few years ago, the first non-English film to do so. Drive My Car, which is the better flim, deserved the nominations it got for that award, as well as Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

 

2020 Winner, Another Round

Another Round

Director: Thomas Vinterberg 

Distributed by: Nordisk Film (Scandinavia); September Film (Netherlands) 

Released: September 2020

Country: Denmark (also, the Netherlands and Sweden)

 

What is youth? A dream. What is love?  The content of the dream.

Another Round starts with the above quote from Kierkegaard, the Danish existentialist philosopher. Kierkegaard taught that there are three stages in life: The child, who seeks pleasure; the adolescent, who begins to seek meaning through ethics, and the adult, who realizes that only by accepting the inexplicable (or religious) can a person be happy, given the absurdity of life.

If you are philosophy major, save it, I realize I don’t really know what I’m talking about. But the
story of Another Round involves four teachers, all guys and great friends, who are beyond the first two stages of life. Of the four, one in particular, Martin (played by the “I’ve seen him somewhere” actor Mads Mikkelsen), has come to a point where he hasn’t been able to make that third stage leap just yet. His History class is so dull that the parents stage a meeting to raise their issues with him. When he looks for solace from his wife, asking her if he is boring, all she can muster is, “You’re not what you used to be when we met.” At dinner with his three friends to celebrate a 40^th birthday, Martin has to be talked down from his bringing-down-the-party moroseness.

But how to cheer him up? Well, look to the

Martin and friends pre-experiment

title. One of the friends brings up a clever little “theory” of Norwegian author Finn Skårderud. The idea is that everyone is born with a blood alcohol content (BAC) level deficiency of about .05. The natural corollary is that if one has a couple of blasts and then maintains that buzz, one will maximize one's potential. Martin is the first to buy in, and the next morning before class takes a good pull off a pint of Smirnoff before teaching. He finds himself connecting with the students, coming up with fun ways for them to learn, getting laughs and enthusiasm for probably the first time in years.

Martin tells the other guys about it and they all decide to make a science project out it, with controls and reporting on findings. They all agree to the rule of no drinking after 8pm or on weekends, and each buys himself a breathalyzer to keep tabs on his BAC (amusingly, the number is shown each time someone measures himself). Of course, the lubrication leads to each teacher turning into Robin Williams in Dead Poet’s Society: History is exciting again; music class sounds angelic, and the coach helps the Rudy Gerner of the soccer team bend it like Beckham. The experiment is a success! What could go wrong?

Testing the Skarderud theory

I don’t think I need to put in a spoiler alert to tell you that some things do go wrong, quite wrong in fact. But this movie is not really about the evils of drinking, and while there are tragic elements to it, this story is about friendship and love. And in the end, maybe the friends are able to accept the absurdity of life and yet still in some small way, through their love for each other, hold onto their youth, even if it is a dream.

Note: This film is featured on Hulu.

The Title: Druk. "Binge drinking." Certainly the Danish title is more dark than the English one. The Danish title certainly better reflects the overall theme of the movie.

Culture: Another Round reflects the problem of drinking in Denmark. Danes need only be 16 to purchase alcohol and teens age 15-17 are the heaviest drinkers in Europe in that age range (and that includes Russia!). The movie opens with a shockingly legal alcohol-related race in which you have to suck down a cold one at each turn. Disqualification is the penalty for puking. The school, much like Denmark itself, begins pondering ways to deal with this problem.

Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend

Agenda danger: Yeah, the film’s central theme is alcoholism, and while there is humor, the overall view of the problem is fairly dark. But this movie isn't
The Lost Weekend, the 1945 film that chronicles the horror of one man's alcoholism. In fact, it's maybe the lightest of Best Foreign Film winners in recent years. Consider the themes of some of the last few winners: extreme class disparity (Parasite); the mysogeny in Mexican culture (Roma); the plight of the transgendered (A Fantastic Woman); the Holocaust (Son of Saul); and bleakness of post war Poland (Ida). Some of these are fine films, but what a relief to watch a movie with great acting, Oscar-nominated directing (Thomas Vinterberg) and a story about friendship and love with no villains that don’t come out of a bottle. The fact that Vinterburg’s daughter tragically died in a car accident just four days into shooting seems to have paradoxically made the movie more uplifting than it would have been.

Best Picture that year:  Nomadland

Rating: Pour yourself a neat Smirnoff or just take a couple of slugs right from the bottle and sit down to watch this film. But keep it at that—you’ll want to take all of this enjoyable film in, no chaser need.

 

2019 Winner, Parasite

Parasite

Director: Bong Joon-ho

Distributed by: CJ Entertainment

Released: May 2019

Country: South Korea

Parasite is a tale of two families, and of two (at least) genres: The families are the Kims and the Parks. The Kims—father, mother, brother, sister—are intelligent, resourceful, and seem to genuinely love each other. The Parks are a bit more of a mixed bag: A father who is a bit self-indulgent and doesn’t really respect his wife; an attractive mother who is a bit ditzy and superficial; a teenage sister who seems like a bit of a brat; and a young brother who apparently sees ghosts. The main difference, though, is that the Parks have Bill Gates money and live in a beautiful home with servants on call to do everything for them, while the Kims live in a basement, making money folding pizza boxes, and trying to steal wi-fi from their neighbors and free pest control by opening their windows when the exterminator sprays the streets.

The Kims

The thing is, though, the Kims are crooked, dishonest, and ruthless. The story begins when a friend of the brother tells him he is going abroad to study. He asks the brother to take over with the tutoring of the 14-year old Park girl, since the friend thinks the brother wouldn’t be able to successfully put the moves on the cute but underage Park girl.  See, he plans to do just that in the near future, once she's old enough. Brother Kim gets the help of his artistic sister, who is handy at creating false documents, to get his credentials and scam his way into a job. After that, one by one, the others in the Kim family scheme their way into positions as well: the sister as the therapist for the little Park boy; Dad becomes the chauffeur; and for Mama Kim, the housekeeper job. One night, while the Parks are away on a camping overnight, the Kims have a little drink-fest to celebrate their new situation, working as a family in a dream home.  It's all been too easy.

The film’s first third is mostly comic—you’ll root for the Kims as anti-heroes, enjoying the ride of how they get where they get. But things turn glum when rain forces the Parks to cut their camping trip short, calling home to say they’ll be home in a few. From here on, the movie is more dramatic thriller, starting with the Kims hustling to clean the place like a teenager getting rid of the empties and assorted smells before Mom and Dad get back from their vacation. Here we find the plot thicken, with twists you don’t see coming and aspects of the characters that may change your perceptions of them.

The Park house

Parasite takes its time in letting the plot develop and allows you to get a good look at each member of the Kim family in its own time. The Parks, on the other hand, tend to be on the verge of stereotype, rich people who either lack empathy or brains. Walking out of the film, I got to thinking—are we supposed to favor the Kims over the Parks? The Parks really do seem to be decent people who just don’t appreciate what poverty is. The Kims are struggling and obviously have the resourcefulness that rich people like the Parks don’t have. Yet they don’t seem to care who they hurt to get what they want. In the end, I think the filmmaker isn’t aiming for you to dislike the Parks or the Kims, but the economic system that predestines where they are. It’s that system, one in which one group has to live off the other (like parasites), that is up for criticism.

The Title: 기생충 Director Bong Joon-ho explains: "Because the story is about the poor family infiltrating and creeping into the rich house, it seems very obvious that Parasite refers to the poor family, and I think that's why the marketing team was a little hesitant," he explained. "But if you look at it the other way, you can say that rich family, they're also parasites in terms of labor. They can't even wash dishes, they can't drive themselves, so they leech off the poor family's labor. So both are parasites." I dunno, sounds a bit Marxian for me, but I see what he's saying.

Parasite family, Magoo-style

Culture: Parasite portrays what Koreans call the Hell Joseon, a term to describe the economic concept of the vast gap between the have and the have-nots, and the have-nots' inability to become part of the haves, despite hard work. The grandeur and the modernity of the house in which the Parks live hearkens to Jacques Tati’s Mon Oncle home (which the French 1958 film mocked), with all the conveniences a modern-day homemaker like Mama Park can enjoy. Despite a torrential downpour, the home seems safe and sound, even for a backyard tent sleepover. Meanwhile, the squalor and uncleanliness of the Kims’ basement home suffers disaster because of weather conditions.

Agenda danger: There’s no pretense that this story is about class conflict and the perceived widening gap between rich and poor in South Korea. Of course as bad as things may be, South Korea only need to look north to see how it could be worse. That said, it seems to me the Academy, made up of those firmly in the have rather than have-not camp, bought the message, or at least wanted to reward a film about class conflict.

Best Picture that year:  Well, Parasite. The first Best Foreign Film (officially, now the Best International Feature Film) to win the overall Best Picture Oscar.

Rating:  I liked the comedy part of this film more than the suspense and social commentary, and I enjoyed all the performances. It’s an entertaining film with an great storyline, even if disbelief has to be firmly suspended at the door. 1917 was a better overall film, but this one ranks high on the list of foreign language films.

2019 Winner, Roma

Roma

Director:  Alfonso Cuarón

Distributed by: Netflix

Released: November 2018

Country:  Mexico

I was thinkin' that maybe I'd get a maid
Find a place nearby for her to stay
Just someone to keep my house clean
Fix my meals and go away

--A Man Needs a Maid, Neil Young

Being a live-in maid seems like a pretty thankless job—I know I couldn’t do it.  First of all, I’m a slob, so my method of cleaning would be a lot of peering into rooms and saying, “Good enough.”  Also, when I cook I do a lot of tasting, so I think my employer would end up having to deduct from my paycheck to compensate for the free food.  But more importantly, it must be difficult in terms of getting attached to the family you work for, as it is for Cleo, in the Mexican Best Foreign Film of 2018, Roma.

Roma is the story of one maid, named Cleo, in an upper-middle class neighborhood in Mexico City. Cleo works for a family with small children, with the husband, a noted doctor, being mostly absent, and his wife Sofia resenting him for it.  Cleo isn’t particularly pretty or smart, but she works hard and clearly cares about the kids.  She is part of their lives and part of the family.

 

The film originates from the mind of Alfonso Cuarón, who is telling the story of his maid as he was

Yalitza Aparicio as Cleo;
Marina de Tavira as Sofia, her employer

growing up in Mexico.  Cuarón is best known to American audiences for his visually stunning but light-on-plot film Gravity from 2013.  Roma is a little more character-driven than that film, but as far as the aesthetics go, I found the film to be too cute by half.  The movie is in black-and-white, and I'm not sure why.  It made things seem more dated than the 1970 Mexico that is its setting.  Also, Cuarón goes a bit Kubrick from time to time, with long, long shots of nothing happening.  Sometimes this can be visually interesting, like the shot of the family garage’s floor during the opening credits.  But too often I found myself yelling a Monty Python-ish “Get on with it!”

There isn’t much plot in Roma, but there doesn’t need to be.  Cleo is a likeable character who shows strength and forbearance despite the challenges thrown at her, and you can’t help but root for her.  And when she sees dog poop on the garage floor, she cleans it up and doesn’t say, “Good enough.”

Cleo and the family

The Title:  Roma is the neighborhood in Mexico City, somewhat upscale but on the decline in 1970, when this movie is set.  The area is now a sort-of trendy hipster place, with art galleries and restaurants.

Culture:  The story takes place during a period of political stress in Mexico, and the latter portion of the film includes rioting that took place in the early 1970’s.  Cleo has a relationship with an unemployed dimwit who has been training with Los Halcones, a quasi-military group who thuggishly kept the peace for the government by using kung-fu moves and by using violence in general.

My dog and I could have used Cleo recently

More interesting is Cuarón’s pop culture references.  The movie features a variety of Mexican pop songs that were popular at the time, and we learn that even in Mexico, folks were putting Jesus Christ Superstar on their turntables.   But what comes through most is Cuarón’s love of the movies.  Two key scenes occur at movie theaters, as Cleo and her boyfriend take in  La Grande Vadrouille, a popular 1966 French comedy; and with the kids she sees Marooned, a 1969 American drama about astronauts.  Both movies feature an abandonment of one sort or another, (and one of the astronauts has a suspicious and odd resemblance to George Clooney, who starred in Gravity for Cuarón a few years ago).

Agenda danger:  Speaking of the theme of abandonment, Roma features two male characters that heinously abandon their families.  Men don’t come out looking too good in this film, seemingly incapable of fulfilling their paternal responsibilities.  Perhaps this is why, after all, a man needs a maid.

Best Picture that year:  Green Book

Rating:  For all the hype, with Cuarón winning Best Director and the film itself nominated for Best Picture (and the movie also won for Best Cinematography), I was a little underwhelmed.  But there was a charm to characters, the female ones anyway, that made it worth watching.  And if you have Netflix, this one is something you should make time for.