Now that the Takatsuki story line is complete, this is an apt moment to examine the strange relationship between Kafuku and his rival, and how their pairing — as well as Kafuku’s dynamic with Watari — play into his healing journey.
There is very powerful Oedipal dynamic going on between Kafuku and Takatsuki. While Kafuku recognizes the young actor initially as a sexual rival for his late wife Oto, he can’t help but be aware of the generational difference and the fact that this young man could very well be roughly the age of a son, if Oto’s pregnancy had led to the birth of one.
This takes us back to Sophocles and the Oedipus myth, where father and son are pitted off in rivalry for the affection of the mother. Oto’s sexual infidelity was all about divided affections, perhaps her way of dealing with the loss of a child and the way she could share more connections in her life without another child. The generational difference set off something that for Kafuku, over time, developed into a father-son dynamic more so than a pairing of sexual rivals — a major departure from the Murakami short story, where the two men were closer in age.
So Kafuku keeps giving Takatsuki surprising chances to grow and redeem himself. He didn’t need to give him an audition at all, he could have just tossed the application in the trash, but he invited him in. Once that happened, he went beyond giving Takatsuki the part he auditioned for — he cast him in the lead. He keeps teaching and pushing the young actor throughout, trying to coax Takatsuki not only to give a better performance, but to grow as a person.
It’s a deeply empathetic relationship for Kafuku, even if it’s doomed to failure. Ultimately, Takatsuki’s inner demons are too powerful. His impulsiveness cannot be tamed and a young man loses his life because of it.
I want to stop here to take stock of the fact that, with a major section of the film approaching that deals with questions of guilt and responsibility, the movie zips rapidly over this plot point, but could have easily been drawn into a question of Kafuku’s indirect responsibility for the death of this young man. His monomaniacal (nearly Ahab-like) quest to understand Oto had a deadly, unexpected impact. While he didn’t know the depths of Takatsuki’s impulsiveness and rage, it’s fair to ask why he let this live wire anywhere near his production. This is a weakness in the story line, and I believe the entire plot point of the Takatsuki manslaughter is poorly developed. But I’ll leave it at that
Kafuku both succeeds and fails with Takatsuki. He succeeds in turning him into a better actor and someone capable of being honest about his past relationship with Oto. But he fails to channel his dark nature in a socially-productive way, and then self destructs. In the end, it feels like a worthy experiment that Kafuku attempted, even if the consequences were tragic.
What comes next in the film is the other familial relationship that Kafuku cultivates with Watari. This is a far more successful, beautiful connection. Perhaps the fact that Watari stands in as a perfect analogy for his lost daughter helps. What I find very interesting here, though, is the way the film subverts how movies typically address how men adjust and adapt to the loss of a romantic partner.
Movies of this type are almost always about the process of men learning to love again. And in a sense, so too is “Drive My Car.” But what we find out in the course of the film is that while Kafuku remains obsessed with Oto, the most healing thing for him to do is create a family-like bond, perhaps indicating his own wound about losing the opportunity to be a father. When Oto is finally gone from his life, he does not gravitate towards finding another woman, he seeks out the children he never had. And that gives the final act of the film its emotional weight.