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| THE GODDESS OF 1967. Starring - Rose Byrne - Rikiya Kurokawa - Nicholas Hope - Elise McCredie. Director - Clara Law. 2000. I don’t care if Clara Law made the excellent “Temptation of a Monk,” “The Goddress of 1967” sucks. Yes, it is a very good-looking film, but it also tries to address dreadful issues that can give you nightmares. Like child abuse. Or crazy Christians. We even have a blind girl here, albeit a very pretty one. As far as I am concerned, blind people in movies are only good for one thing, they bring awards. And that happened here. I have no doubt Rose Byrne is excellent here, but her character’s disability brings only boredom to this already meandering road movie. The film opens in Tokyo. A young Japanese Man (JM, played by Rikiya Kurokawa) is feeding dead mice to a cobra, which he keeps as a pet because he knows it is very hip to keep snakes at home. He is also a man of taste when it comes to the choice of cars. He orders on the Internet a 1967 Citroen a.k.a. the Goddess and goes all the way to the Australian outback to collect it. To his amazement, the owner has shot himself and his wife, leaving behind their gorgeous but blind daughter (BG, played by Rose Byrne) and her kid brother. Naturally, JM hooks up with BG and convinces her to ditch the kid. The two then drive the Citroen and begins a journey that is as revelatory as Barney. “Goddess” is an ambitious film. In fact, it is so ambitious it totally fucks up. You probably don’t see it coming, but JM and BG become close friends, and we see snippets of their pasts. Turns out BG was molested by her grandpa and her Mommy is a crazy Christian. Big deal. Can we move on to something else? Pederasts and fanatics are not interesting in themselves, and to paste them on haphazardly will only bog down the whole movie and kills whatever subtlety remaining. The relationship between JM and BG is no less tedious than their pasts. It feels almost obligatory that just because they sit next to each other in a car and they talk boring stuff, something must happen between them on a spiritual level. And did I tell you that they screw each other about halfway through the film? That’s the only interesting thing that happens in the entire movie, but still the scene feels kind of forced. We are told that a bond is building up between them, but we don’t see how, or why. What save “Goddess” from being a complete disaster are the stunning cinematography and Rose Byrne’s beauty. Imagine looking at a gorgeous lady amid beautiful scenery. Now imagine doing that for two hours and you will understand why “Goddess” sucks no matter what. 5*****stars. © 2002 Geeky Marcus. NATURAL BORN VIEWERS. |
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