If you are driving or contemplating a purchase of a featureless economical car with automatic transmission, or if you have REALLY managed to bear the tedious 3 hours of `The Titanic' without leaving the theatre for a half-an-hour refreshment or for good, THE GODDESS OF 1967 is not a film for you. On the other hand, if you are sick of being able to predict the remaining two and a half hours of the contemporary Hollywood mind-numbing production, Clara Law has a remedy for you! Moreover, if you have ever fallen in love with a car, you would be even more delighted to see that there are people like you out there.
The first hint of the cinematic joy that THE GODDESS OF 1967 offers is clear from the first 10 minutes of the film. That is, you realise that behind the whole idea, no matter what it is going to be, there is the AUTHOR, and not the producers, stuntmen, pyrotechnicians, special-effect crew, low-IQ charity Clara Law is an author with a `handwriting', reminiscent to that of Jim Jarmush or Wim Wenders, but still far from an immitator. Not many authors opt for using a variety of `narative techniques' that film as a media offers. It can be `slippery ground' since the story line can easily be overshadowed by the means of telling it. However, Clara Law bravely takes the challenge, carrying us smoothly through the wonderful world of moving pictures backed by enchanting music.
Thematically, THE GODDESS OF 1967 incorporates a number of topics, child abuse being but one of them. In fact, it poses questions before us, through the mouth of the blind girl. Questions seemingly so simple that most of us would not bother asking, yet most of us would not be able to answer them, as well as the characters in the film remain perplexed, stammering nonsense that reverberates mockingly.
THE GODDESS OF 1967 is a meeting point of several worlds. Not only the Japanese and the Australian meet there, but also the European, embodied in the relic car symbolising the old virtues and culture refusing to die out. Further, overpopulated Tokyo is contrasted to the vast Australian landscape, both offering an abundance of colour, sounds and even smells. The good and the evil, love and hate, reason and absurdity, trauma and optimism, gloom and humour are interwoven into the plot with straightforward simplicity, which makes the film surprisingly lifelike. All these worlds and plans are uncompromisingly exposed, celebrating beauty but not hiding ugliness. Finally, the film brings all these worlds closer to us, making us richer for knowing one another better.
The first hint of the cinematic joy that THE GODDESS OF 1967 offers is clear from the first 10 minutes of the film. That is, you realise that behind the whole idea, no matter what it is going to be, there is the AUTHOR, and not the producers, stuntmen, pyrotechnicians, special-effect crew, low-IQ charity Clara Law is an author with a `handwriting', reminiscent to that of Jim Jarmush or Wim Wenders, but still far from an immitator. Not many authors opt for using a variety of `narative techniques' that film as a media offers. It can be `slippery ground' since the story line can easily be overshadowed by the means of telling it. However, Clara Law bravely takes the challenge, carrying us smoothly through the wonderful world of moving pictures backed by enchanting music.
Thematically, THE GODDESS OF 1967 incorporates a number of topics, child abuse being but one of them. In fact, it poses questions before us, through the mouth of the blind girl. Questions seemingly so simple that most of us would not bother asking, yet most of us would not be able to answer them, as well as the characters in the film remain perplexed, stammering nonsense that reverberates mockingly.
THE GODDESS OF 1967 is a meeting point of several worlds. Not only the Japanese and the Australian meet there, but also the European, embodied in the relic car symbolising the old virtues and culture refusing to die out. Further, overpopulated Tokyo is contrasted to the vast Australian landscape, both offering an abundance of colour, sounds and even smells. The good and the evil, love and hate, reason and absurdity, trauma and optimism, gloom and humour are interwoven into the plot with straightforward simplicity, which makes the film surprisingly lifelike. All these worlds and plans are uncompromisingly exposed, celebrating beauty but not hiding ugliness. Finally, the film brings all these worlds closer to us, making us richer for knowing one another better.