Celebs: Japan cheers ‘Drive My Car’ Oscar win, hopes it will raise Murakami’s profile – Gulf Digital News

Celebs: Japan cheers ‘Drive My Car’ Oscar win, hopes it will raise Murakami’s profile – Gulf Digital News

From Tokyo streets to the highest levels of government, Japan on Monday cheered the Oscar win of 'Drive My Car' amid hopes it will raise the profile of Haruki Murakami, the perennial Nobel prize hopeful who penned the story on which the film was based.

The three-hour drama, the story of a widowed theatre actor grappling with his past, was directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi and based on a short story by Murakami, the international bestselling author whose name has arisen annually for more than a decade as a potential Nobel Literature Prize winner.

The film, which has garnered other prizes including a screenplay award at Cannes, became Japan's second regular winner in the International Feature Film category and the first since 'Departures' in 2009.

In a first, it had also been nominated for 'Best Picture' - ultimately won by 'CODA.'

"It's a high hurdle for a Japanese movie to win Best Picture, but I hope more Japanese movies will be recognised in the future," said Azusa Shimizu, a 31-year-old media worker in downtown Tokyo, who said she was nonetheless quite happy.

Others were more effusive.

"Given that the mainstay of the Academy Awards is American movies, I'm really happy that a Japanese film was able to