Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s light yet profound drama is the kind of thrilling discovery that foreign-language cinema is all about

Two years ago, accepting the first best picture Oscar for a foreign-language film, for Parasite, Bong Joon-ho said: “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” If Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car – definitely amazing – becomes the second foreign-language victor, that means Oscar voters will have vaulted multiple barriers: not just the film’s own English subtitles, but the various Japanese, Mandarin, Korean and Korean sign language ones its main character, widowed theatre director Yûsuke, uses in his experimental multilingual stage productions.

Through the course of this year’s awards season, Drive My Car has had a gear surge out of the foreign-language category to enter the bigger conversation – despite a foreboding three-hour runtime, a resolutely high-minded tone and the kind of unhurried pace that permits it to drop the opening credits 40 minutes in. But its embrace is the broadest. Not just its polyglot setup, but the canonical plays Yûsuke stars in and stages – Waiting for Godot and Uncle Vanya – show Hamaguchi’s aspiration to the universal, and dealing in the biggest themes: sexuality as a creative force, the enigma of others, grief, the capacity of storytelling and acting to transmute trauma.