How do you follow up an Academy Award-winning film? If you’re Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the director of 2021’s “Drive My Car,” the answer is: with a little help from a friend.
While “Drive My Car” was scooping up awards on the festival circuit, culminating with the 2022 Oscar for best international feature film, Hamaguchi was trying to come up with an idea for his next project. During this time, he received a request from musician Eiko Ishibashi, the composer and performer of the acclaimed score for “Drive My Car,” to create a film that would accompany Ishibashi’s band during live performances. Hamaguchi, whose other films include “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” and “Happy Hour,” says the project, which the pair developed in close collaboration for over a year, gave him the freedom to take “a totally different approach” to filmmaking.
“I feel like I was taken to a different place,” Hamaguchi says. “I think there are many things I wouldn’t have been able to come up with without (Ishibashi’s) offer.”