KUALA LUMPUR: Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car has just become the first Japanese film to be nominated for an Oscar Best Picture.
Australian entertainment portal news.com.au reported today that Drive My Car, the 12th non-English language film to be nominated for Best Picture, had earned four Oscar nominations, including Best Screenplay and Best Director.
Hamaguchi, 43, said that he adapted the film from a short story by iconic Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, and added bits of famed Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's play Uncle Vanya into it.
"It is the story of a director, Yusuke Kafuku, who must grapple with the complex relationship with his wife after her death. While staging a production of Uncle Vanya, he finds an unlikely companion in his driver Misaki Watari who shoulders her own trauma," he said.
Hamaguchi added: "It is also inspired by what happened in Japan 10 years ago, when we were hit by a deadly and devastating earthquake and tsunami. It shook everyone's view of things including mine."
Hamaguchi said that the healing process took time for everyone including himself, and he met a lot of people who were traumatised by the disaster.
"In this work, I've drawn on their experiences, how they reconstructed a sense of the world for themselves and what is important for them."
He added that the main characters were traumatised by personal tragedies, and their coming together lent support to each other.
"As they exchange information, they get to know each other and come to understand what was lost."
Hamaguchi, a Tokyo University film graduate, is best known the 2011 documentary Voices From The Waves about the 2011 earthquake and tsunami which hit Japan.
Last year, he won the Silver Bear Award at the Berlinale for the film Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy.