Drive My Car
The first <PERSON> I saw was this year's Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy and it was a revelation. I was so blown away by it that I fear I may have let comparison and expectation rob me of a sober engagement with Drive My Car. This second <PERSON> is clearly the work of an emotionally sophisticated and visionary auteur, but I found it much too neat and a little contrived to fully engage with it. I haven't read any <PERSON>, but this felt constrained by the kind of conventions one finds in literary fiction, the kind that frequently turn me off to such writing. A defense of the work could easily point out that this is kind of the point: the conventions of the theater, <PERSON>'s rhythmic methods, and the parallels of art and real life are clearly animating the work. 83
And it's depiction of grief as a kind of repetitive numbness is really quite brilliant. But it was precisely these connections, along with some its narrative symbolism, that just felt a little too calculated for emotional effect. There were passages of brilliance, of course, and moments were I was quite moved. But this felt constrained and at 3 hours, often quite dull. I will give this another view some time in the future, perhaps after I go back and see his other films. 831