DRIVE MY CAR
★★★★
OUT 19 NOVEMBER / CERT 15 / 179 MINS
DIRECTOR Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
CAST Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tôko Miura
Still grieving over his wife’s passing, actor-theatre director Yûsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) agrees to stage a multilingual production of Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima. From this simple enough plot core, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, loosely adapting Haruki Murakami’s short story, spins a slow (the titles don’t appear until 40 minutes in), low-key but mesmerising three hours. The first third centres on marriage, sex and storytelling (sometimes all together) before centring on Kafuku’s increasingly confessional relationship with his driver Misaki (Tôko Miura). It’s fundamentally a patchwork of vignettes rather than an engrossing narrative, but it’s a rich, visually striking work teeming with ideas about grief, betrayal and the nature of creativity.
IF
QUANT
★★★★
OUT 29 OCTOBER / CERT TBC / 86 MINS
DIRECTOR Sadie Frost
PARTICIPANTS Jasper Conran, Kate Moss, Charlotte Tilbury
Sadie Frost’s directorial debut is an exploration of renowned British fashion designer Mary Quant. Extensive archive footage and interviews with Quant are interspersed with a dramatic portrayal of the designer (Camilla Rutherford). These sepia-tinted vignettes serve as a window into the imagination of a designer whose famous phrase, “Be free, be yourself,” sparked a feminist revolution in the ’60s. Contributions from The Kinks’ Dave Davies, Kate Moss, Vivienne Westwood and Jasper Conran frame the enormity of Quant’s achievements well, while fashion journalists assess her legacy today. This is an accomplished debut from Frost; it’s a definitive and overdue look at one of Britain’s most important designers.
EA