The Goddess of 1967

THE GODDESS OF 1967 is a film by Clara Law and husband Eddie Fong. It's set in Australia and it's by a Hong Kong/Australian director famous for her less 'Aussie' films. It's about a Japanese businessman (Rikiya Kurokawa, look out for this name, a great performance by a Prada model(?!) in his first role) who finds a classic car (a Citroen DS 1967) on the internet and comes to Australia to buy it. Anyway, when he arrives he finds the owners dead and ends up on a journey in the car across the outback with a blind Australian girl (yeah, it's a road movie). It becomes quite dark and twisted after that and I better not say anymore as not to spoil it. It makes great use of flashbacks which are great stand alone stories, and interestingly the flashbacks are shot to look 'normal' whereas the the main story has a strange 'dreamy' look. The look of the film reminded me of innovative HK directors like Wong Kar-Wai and his cinematographer Chris Doyle. Clara uses a lot of visual effects and graphics that work well, (although sometimes look like vague attempts to be experimental) and obvious back projection behind the drivers in the car which I thought was great but alot of people might not like. Dion Beebe's cinematography was great, the negative was somehow bleached giving a strange look with unnatural glowing colour. Like Floating life, the colours are amazing. Sometimes it's a bit too Australian which might actually put Australian's off the film, at the same time be appealing to non-Australians. It's a bit depressing but you'll get over it. It's a journey into the dark-side contrasted by the beauty of the Citroen which leads the journey.