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Not many people have seen this film. Those who have seen it, will either
hate it or love it. I loved it.
The movie starts with a computer screen that says: I want to buy
GOD.
The Prologue doesn't have any human voices. The world the director shows of
Japan is obvious. A world of Japanese high-tech. Everywhere there are
machines, nobody lives without it. Even as they communicate. As well as the
running is been done on a machine.
Clara Law has a very interesting and personal view which shows us her own
interesting personality that she is. Because of that movie I can't let go of
that.
She succeeds in showing us her own vision of The Goddess of 1967 because she
stays consequent by creating a contemporary and postmodern feeling. A
feeling she got from her own environment. Born in Macau, studied English
literature in Hong Kong. Afterwards Film in London and lives with her
husband in Australia.
What Clara Law tries to explain in her movie is sort of autobiographic, it
is obvious that she reflects this on the two protagonists. Both characters
living in two completely different countries and cultures. Clara Law
doesn't work this movie out in a shallow kind of way. She does it within a
own creative way and lets the characters explore each other
One character JM appears to be having everything he wants. Financial that
is. He is so wealthy he believes he can buy god. Therefore he wants to buy
this is beautifully car called the CITROEN DS from 1967. The GODdess. For JM
this means freedom. Free of all the big luxury, being unhooked of all the
machines.
The other character is BG. A girl who has been blind for all her life.
Because of a suddenly death of the dealer of the car, BG will lead JM the
way to the real owner of the car. Or so she says.
Once they are on the road with the car, you can follow the mental way of
both characters. On the road the flashbacks follow and the viewer learns the
pain and history of the characters and why the are what they are.
Neither silent or moving.
Neither perceivable or imperceptible
Neither nothing or everything.
A state of mystery, paradox, ambiguity
That is what I tried to capture in this film.
CLARA LAW
Thank you Clara Law.....
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Wong Kar-Wai ("In the Mood for Love") meets Jim Jarmusch ("Broken
Flowers") and flirts with Wim Wenders ("Paris, Texas") and David Lynch
("The Elephant Man", "Blue Velvet"). That'd be a simplified way of
describing "The Goddess of 1967", a dazzling, unique road movie written
and directed by Clara Law ("Floating Life").
The goddess of the title isn't a woman, but the nickname of a Citroën
DS, a famous car designed in the 50's. A young Japanese man (Rikiya
Kurokawa) dreams of buying that car, and he travels to Australia after
he finds an offering on the net. He has an unpleasant surprise when he
gets there, and then embarks on a road trip through the outback with a
mysterious, red-haired blind girl (Rose Byrne, who deservedly won the
Volpi Cup for best actress at the Venice Film Festival and was robbed
of an Oscar nod).
Byrne is the soul of this film. She has some of the saddest eyes I've
ever seen, an exotic, captivating beauty and one of the most cinematic
faces of the past years (her dance scene at the bar is anthologic -
probably my favourite since Uma Thurman's in "Pulp Fiction"). She's
been in lots of different films since her breakthrough, from
blockbusters (Star Wars II, Troy) to indies (City of Ghosts, The Dead
Girl), period dramas (I Capture the Castle, Marie Antoinette) to
horror/sci-fi (28 Weeks Later, Sunshine), has proved herself extremely
versatile and deserves to be a big name. But special kudos go to Clara
Law, her co-writer Eddie Ling-Ching Fong and cinematographer Dion Beebe
(Oscar winner for "Memoirs of a Geisha"), responsible for the
breathtaking visuals (Aussie landscapes seldom looked so gorgeous).
Incest, murder, blindness aren't light issues, and a less talented
director could make an imbroglio with this material. Fortunately, Clara
Law knows what she's talking about and her film is a cinematic poem -
sad, sometimes disturbing, but not depressing (I have no idea how could
someone classify this as a comedy, though). She shows much more talent
than other contemporary female avant-garde directors, such as the
overrated Claire Denis ("Beau Travail") or Lynne Ramsay ("Morvern
Callar"). "The Goddess of 1967" is a vigorous film that deserves to be
discovered. My vote is 10.
I went into the Cinema expecting... I don't know what. I knew it was a road
trip picture with a Japanese man and Australian woman... they looked pretty
enough on the poster. What I didn't expect was two very real people, scared,
vulnerable and eccentric characters on a journey across Australia that
becomes luminous and intoxicating.
The visual style of the film /cinematography, while gorgeous, was at first
distracting... what some people would consider artsy. But as the story
unfolds, the visual look of the film matches with the messy, hypnotic
storyline and its characters.
A beautiful film, one with an unexpected emotional wallop.
Clare Law was a successful blockbuster director while she was in Hong Kong, who made films like The Reincarnation of Golden Lotus. Her artistic ambition has taken her to another level of filmmaking. The Goddess of 1967 is highly experimental in style. Unlike many experimental works, however, this film does not seem pointless. On the contrary, it has a very powerful story. The story is therapeutic; it deals with abuse, incest and obsession, with an ending of recognition and reconciliation (but not the kind of phony sentimental type that is typical of Hollywood drama). This film is a work of art. Its cinematography is beautiful; its writing is humorous, despite the fact that the story is heavy. I hope the DVD will be released soon.
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
This film has two very redeemable qualities. The fantastic
cinematography and the performance of Rose Byrne. The rest of the film
however--
While The Goddess of 1967 is very pleasing to look at, the actions of
the characters are frequently shallow and seemingly random. For
example, during the conclusion, it simply was not believable that B.G.
would make the choice to put her past aside and choose to pursue a life
with J.M. when the chemistry and dialogue between the two characters
was so completely mindless.
Law failed to demonstrate the growth and change B.G. allegedly must
have made during the trip and forces her into a 180 at the end of the
film as a quick fix.
Oi! How can I say how I felt about this film using actual words. This is a
description that requires a lot of hand gestures.
It moves in such a way that you are carried along with the action, not
separated from the action by this big "movie". It has a fly on the wall
feeling to it, and it all fits together. Each scene, well each shot
really,
fits perfectly jigsawed in with those surrounding it. Very polished and
precise. It seems to just naturally happen, not forced. Even the frequent
use of flashbacks came off as natural and easy.
Very beautiful to look at. Warm colors and textures. Very sweet, real
romance.
Humanity peeled down to most raw and simple. I was pulled by the
shirt-collar through each path of the story. I really couldn't have
stopped
watching it even if I had wanted to (which I didn't). Very controlled,
purposeful tension.
Beautiful.
Visually impressive in a way that few films are, The Goddess of 1967 is a sumptuous feast for the eyes. Unfortunately all the eye candy in the world can't save a film that suffers dreadfully from being extremely self indulgent. There's nothing wrong with a slow film as evidenced by such cinematic gems as The Thin Red Line so long as the winding narrative path takes the audience somewhere. The Goddess of 1967 fails in this regard. Ponderous and meandering, The Goddess of 1967 is a tedious example of a film overly impressed with its own importance.
I don't have time to go into in-depth considered praise for this film, but it's a film I have watched several times, and feel it deserves a pat-on-the-back. Although some of the underlying issues that the main characters have gone through are in many respects very serious and macabre, I don't think it was the director's intent to make this a depressing movie which dwells on those issues alone. Goddess is an art movie. It's designed to be visually different and controversial for its handling of subject matter. Blindness, incest, murder, dysfunctionality. An unexpected combination of events against the spectacular backdrop of the Australian outback. Ironically, the central character is blind, and cannot see all this visual beauty directly. But, she somehow finds a strength and sensitivity amongst the far from beautiful physical abuse she grown up with. Somehow with this is intertwined an ex-fashion model from Japan, and a cult car. It's an artistic celluloid canvas. I don't think an average director could put all these elements together and come off with a really watchable and intriguing movie. I love the central character's feisty, yet carefree independence. Free-spirited female viewers will love this. I think most male viewers will miss the subtlety of the movie's intent, and will therefore not enjoy it so much. Makes a really refreshing change from your regular Hollywood flick.
I loathe the phrase "It's only a movie", as in, "it's not real, they're only actors, don't let a film affect your emotions". If you're not going to lose yourself in a good film or become emotionally affected, perhaps learn something, or find entertainment value, then what's the point, or the fun. Obviously it's only a movie, but I for one can relate to scenarios, or start to equate a film to real people's lives, envisioning the woes and traumas of dark story lines affecting people all too vividly in the real world. There are certain scenes in certain films that haunt me and stick in the back of my mind like an ugly memory, making the fact that the film was great or not a mute point. No, I don't want to put blinders on keeping myself ignorant to despair, enabling it to continue, however these scenes that haunt me, I could live without and wish I could erase from memory! GODDESS OF 1967 has a few such scenes which I found particularly disturbing and I wish I had never seen this film because of those few disturbing scenes. I can't find this film beautiful or look at it strictly as an artistic endeavor with attempts at social commentary. The degree of victimization and acts of desperation to survive which the main character is driven to, is truly depressing, regardless of the lessons or outcome. I did not get enough value or mind opening insight from this film to make it worth watching. People who's projected imagination and human empathy are less vivid than mine, will probably have a much milder take on this film.
The Goddess of the title is a Citroen DS which a young Japanese Man agrees
to buy over the internet. When he arrives in Australia to get it, the
owner
is dead and he embarks on a journey into the outback with a blind girl for
a
reason which is never clear, even when it is made apparent at the end. The
result is probably best described as contemporary Art House. The film
substitutes a vacuous but street smart style for content, and bizarre
quirkiness for characterisation. Its flashbacks into the deprived and
abused
past of the blind girl are bleak, but otherwise there is little story and
the two main characters appear almost lost in the vast landscapes they are
travelling through. Could Australian movies please get over their current
pretentious pre-occupation with mad and irrational characters and
meaningless storylines?
The votes on this site, and some press reviews, suggest that some people
enjoyed this film. I suspect they are the same people who enjoyed
performance art during the 1990s and Andy Warhol movies in the 1980s.
Clara
Law succeeds in striking a style, but tells us nothing we want to know.
Even
the Australian outback, which dominates the film, gets a raw deal: the
locations appear random, the colour in the outdoor scenes is fashionably
bleached, and the whole thing was shot during the wettest summer for
years.
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