The wise told me once that life is metaphorical. The problem comes when you take it too literally. The second sentence is what I think.
In this country especially, talking about the education system, the top scorers are moved to the science classes. The lower scoring ones to the literature classes.
Moving forward 30 years, we are reaping what the system has sown. Just read the daily news. Read the posts on social media. The mentality of the general population.
And the socmed influencers are the clever ones. While the real intellects are at the backseats.
Talking about reaping what you sow. The system we are using now are opt on recycling the same garbage on top of the country’s administration. Same as the scenes in socmed, the not-so-smart ones will get the votes.
Oh, am I supposed to talk about the film? Yes. Sorry. For a society where the majority like to take things literally, this 3-hour long film won't appeal much to you guys.
Probably 6 hours of tik-tok clips make you a happier person, and if watching films for you just mean looking for easter eggs, cameos, and plot-twist, multiversity of your favorite franchise. And like the government, they will just reboot the same shit over and over again.
They are quickly losing the plot, on why you do things, like using prettier special fx won't make it a better movie. Jesus Christ. Because the literature students are cast down below and the science students become the yes man. Don’t ask me who and how those ministers are being chosen.
The first 40 minutes of Drive My Car will go to the general public as porn because they are too busy to read between the lines. It is also around the time the opening credits start. And so does my review lah.
The main hint for me is when the inclusion of Misaki's character is somewhat being forced into the narrative. The reason - is a driver has to be assigned to avoid the accident like the previous year. Sort of like a ‘MacGuffin’. (and she is the same age as Kafuku’s dead daughter if she was still alive)
That has triggered my suspicions. And then near the end of the dinner scene, she suddenly dives down the table, off the frame, to reach out for something. First, we cannot see what. But then it is revealed that it is the dog.
For this film to be regarded as highly as it is, the director won't do that for no reason. The nail in the coffin is when she was there for the main show. And the audience’s clap at the end was cut short.
The ending came to no surprise for me for the hints I stated above. The whole film is of Misaki’s making. All of it was just in her head.
Reminded me of the opening of Life of Pi showing the Brahman’s endless loop of the fractal universe. Our whole life could just be a blip in someone’s head.
And when Joseph Campbell talked about it, he mentioned Schopenhauer (which Kafuka mentioned many times along with Dostoevsky) said,
“The only way you can talk about this great tide in which you're a participant is as Schopenhauer did: the universe is a dream dreamed by a single dreamer where all the dream characters dream too.”
Misaki is the director, dreaming. She is also like Lucky, the servant in Waiting for Godot (a HUGE hint of Absurdism). The moment she (Misaki) speaks (through this film), no one has any idea what she is saying, because while the rest are looking for meaning, Lucky (also like Camus’s Sisyphus) accepts the meaninglessness of it all, and drives away happy in acceptance…along the road to the oscars.