The Goddess of 1967

 

Director Clara Law

actor Rikiya Kurokawa

actress Rose Byrne

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE GODDESS OF 1967        A                                                                                                Australia  (118 mi)  2000  d: Clara Law

Did you see Melville’s LE SAMOURAI?  “The closest thing to a perfect movie I’ve ever seen.”   —John Woo, director

Neither silent or moving.                                                                                                        Neither perceivable nor imperceptible.                                                                                            Neither nothing or everything.                                                                                                         A state of mystery, paradox, ambiguity.                                                                                       That is what I tried to capture in this film.
—Clara Law, director

The American road movie may have first been introduced to film viewers in Westerns, with its vast roads and frontiers to be forged as white settlers crossed the country in search of a better life during the land grabs, where a bittersweet existential message may have surfaced as early as John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath (1940), where the road was filled with downtrodden and beaten-down Dust Bowl farmers during the Depression.  Several decades later, postwar prosperity viewed the open road as an escape from the conventionality of suffocating 1950’s conformity, with Beat Generation writers like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg, and William S. Burroughs hitting the road in their own mythical journeys of self-discovery, where characters are often transformed by the experience and the people they meet.  In Australia, George Miller’s dystopian MAD MAX Trilogy (1979, 81, 85) was an action thriller exploring the vast Australian outback, where the road signifies menace, danger, and a fall from grace, while Wim Wenders’ futuristic Until the End of the World (Bis ans Ende der Welt) (1991) that ends in the Australian outback is a sprawling, dreamlike epic, conceived and imagined as the greatest road movie ever made, over a decade in the making, filmed in 15 cities across four continents, yet money woes and its ambitious scope led to a disjointed, shortened release that confused critics and viewers alike.  While there have been a multitude of films depicting the horrific Australian colonial history towards Aboriginals, using the vast expanse of the land as a nearly unpassable cultural divide, including Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971), Phillip Noyce’s RABBIT-PROOF FENCE (2002), Rolf de Heer’s THE TRACKER (2002), Ivan Sen’s BENEATH CLOUDS (2002), or Warwick Thornton’s 2010 Top Ten Films of the Year: #8 Samson and Delilah and Sweet Country (2017), there have also been multi-layered films like Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) or Ray Lawrence’s LANTANA (2001) that remind us of the sinister nature of the Australian landscape, using the road to explore the mysteries of human nature, playing out like a detective story that viewers need to solve.  While there is a relative absence of Indigenous Australians in this film, Law tends to investigate what it means and how it feels to be human during times of transition, migration, isolation, and tragedy, where the remote landscape is accentuated with great detail, as if it were the surface of the moon, elevating it to a near mythical realm, with the director utilizing mosaic storytelling, going on an often-surreal, character-driven journey that is intercut with episodes from the past, probing moral ambiguities while pulling from different time periods.  Incorporating atmospheric music by Jen Anderson, she chooses to play a section from Verdi’s Requiem during one of the more gorgeous climactic moments, adding even more piercing drama to this moody spectacle, Christa Ludwig: Lacrymosa (Messa da Requiem) Giulini by ... YouTube (6:31).  Strangely, the movie was in many ways copied a few years later with Sue Brooks’ JAPANESE STORY (2003), starring Toni Collette, generating much greater box office success while also winning 8 out of the 10 nominated awards at the Australian AACTA Award ceremony in 2003.

A sense of menace also permeates the Australian outback in this contemporary road movie, most of which is shot in the Lightning Ridge area of New South Wales where many people work underground in the mines, told in a more richly layered cinematic language, revealing something very ancient and primeval, as it successfully blends film noir elements into contrasting periods of modernism and postmodernism.  The real surprise is the influence of Melville’s Le Samouraï (1967), not only on the title, as Alain Delon, the cool, unsmiling hitman in the film, escapes authorities by driving around in a Citroën DS, known as the déesse, French for Goddess, which in an offbeat and wacky way also plays into the psychological mindset of the two lead protagonists.  Roland Barthes is quoted from his 1957 essay on The New Citroën, Roland Barthes' Mythologies, “It is obvious that the new Citroën has fallen from the sky.”  The two main characters of the film are never named but are listed in the credits as BG and JM, which stand for Blind Girl and Japanese Man respectively.  In the wordless opening in an upscale Tokyo apartment, where every conceivable space is filled with snakes and reptiles, music is a key identifying factor, as young Japanese computer hacker and embezzler, JM (male Prada model Rikiya Kurokawa), displays his mad passions, taking an interest in buying a candy pink Goddess on the internet from a couple in Australia, but when he arrives with $35,000 in cash in a case at the front door, he discovers the owners have just blown themselves away in a murder suicide.  BG (Rose Byrne), a blind girl, freely shows them the bits of brains on the ceiling before letting him take her for a ride through the Australian outback.  For JM, his obsession with the Goddess is tied to the early French film, where it becomes clear that he sees parallels between himself and Delon, and therefore views the Goddess as his only means to successfully escape his crimes, with the road leading them into their respective pasts and futures.  For BG, her mother, and grandmother, the Goddess becomes the physical and metaphorical vessel in which three generations of abused women communicate their stories of suffering, combining a desolate land with a dark and haunting past, along with a shared desire by both of these strangers to transcend the past and find redemption.  Born in Macao and raised in Hong Kong, Clara Law comes from the Second Wave of Hong Kong filmmakers in the mid-1980’s that includes Wong Kar-wai and Stanley Kwan, whose novel aesthetics and bold experimentation in cinematic language came to be defined as film artistry, breaking away from the more mainstream action-themed movies with a focus on martial arts and swordplay.  Law’s films are a poetry of displacement and transmigration, heavily influenced by Yasujirō Ozu, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Andrei Tarkovsky, each with the capacity to touch one’s soul, reflecting an anxious period of transition from an independent Hong Kong back to the sovereignty of Mainland China in 1997.  In the early 90’s, Law moved to Australia along with her husband and longterm writing-producing collaborator Eddie L. C. Fong, making films that look at the pain and promise of the meeting of Asia and the West, which is an essential theme of this film, which turns into an abstract, completely original road movie through the Australian outback that also travels through the inner recesses of the blind girl’s memory and imagination, filled with murder, incest, and other horrors and pains, where despite a backstory provided for JM, she actually becomes the center of the story, The Goddess of 1967- feature film excerpt YouTube (2:12). 

Filled with ravishing, unforgettable imagery by Dion Beebe, who shot Margot Nash’s Vacant Possession (1995) and also worked with Jane Campion, Michael Mann, and Rob Marshall, reminiscent in some ways of Lynne Ramsay’s hallucinogenic MORVERN CALLAR (2002), this was shot on 35mm when that was still the norm, alternating different photographic styles depending on the era in which the scene is set.  This is easily one of the most hauntingly beautiful, yet strangest and most unclassifiable films you could ever see, where despite the largesse of the empty landscape continually filling the screen, immersed in a subjective artificial light, bursting with the brightness of the desert colors, much like Tracey Moffat’s Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (1990), there is an accompanying inner journey through flashback sequences that keep going further back in time, The Goddess Of 1967. YouTube (42 seconds), providing the foundation and sustenance of BG’s existence.  While he’s a trustworthy character harboring only good intentions toward BG, her badass attitude completely shocks JM, who thinks he’s pretty badass himself, The Goddess of 1967 feature film excerpt YouTube (2:41).  At one point he is stupefied by her near cartographic memory of what road turns to take and when, which seems inconceivable, if not impossible for a blind person, perhaps a metaphoric projection by the director, but it’s an insistent reminder of just how unique she is, with Rose Byrne providing such a gorgeous performance, winner of the Best Actress Award at the Venice Festival.  The film is about contrasts, but also about deconstructing the significance of these contrasts, both suffering from a profound sense of loss, where the blend of their respective cultures and the unearthing of their personal stories comprises what storyline there is, but it’s told in such an oblique, abstract way, not easy to follow, yet dazzlingly inventive.  By offering a genuine rapprochement between two of the most contrasting characters, an Australian woman and a Japanese man, the film illustrates the potential for characters from different cultures and worlds to be able to develop beyond racial constructions and cultural differences.  Modernism is represented as the past, but also in connection to Australia, whereas Japan is represented as a postmodern Tokyo, which is visually represented several times in the film, in the beginning, middle (JM’s flashback to his past) and at the end.  Each of these, besides the middle flashback, represents Japan in a blurred, blue-wash filter, saturated in an experimental video look, where the images of Tokyo are intended to represent a surreal, hi-tech, futuristic, unfriendly, machine-driven otherworld.  JM is trying to escape not only his past and commitments, but also a general dissatisfaction with Japan, where so much value is placed on conformity.  When BG asks JM about Tokyo, he responds that it’s like living on Mars.  The best scene takes place when he plays the jukebox in an old bar and teaches her to dance, a wildly exuberant moment that still astonishes to this day, (HD) The Goddess of 1967 - Dance Scene (rus) / Богиня 1967 ... YouTube (3:42).  Winner of Best Director of the Chicago Film Festival in 2000, perhaps the only time the film has ever been shown locally, it feels like a cinematic, psychological subconscious exploration, admittedly convoluted, growing increasingly complex, accentuating color, texture, and composition, where a stunning tonal atmosphere takes precedence over any narrative coherence, featuring unexpected twists, a gripping emotionality, and an imaginatively distorted natural decor of the Australian outback, providing the film’s penetrating power to the inner world of these characters, two damaged souls, both driven to become reacquainted with the worlds from which they come.    

Note                                                                                                                                               As mentioned by JM in the film, President Charles de Gaulle survived an assassination attempt at Le Petit-Clamart near Paris on August 22, 1962, planned by Algerian War veteran Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry.  The plan was to ambush the motorcade with machine guns, disable the vehicles, and then close in for the kill.  De Gaulle praised the unusual abilities of his unarmored Citroën DS with saving his life – the car, riddled with bullets and with two tires punctured, was still able to escape at full speed.  Afterward, De Gaulle vowed never to ride in any other make of car.

2017 Top Ten List #5 Columbus

COLUMBUS             A  

USA  (104 mi)  2017  d:  Kogonada

This is the film Jim Jarmusch was trying to make in Paterson (2016), as it’s infinitely more meditative, using conversations to explore things that matter to people, including starkly poetic imagery based entirely on the local architecture of the region, yet the biggest surprise is the complexity of the subject matter, dramatically spare, interjecting a strange combination of moods and personal thoughts that continually broaden to become universally recognized themes, where there’s more love in this one film than any ten films combined seen earlier this year.  It’s an ever-expanding work that operates on so many different levels, not the least of which is a stunning visual design, making this among the more eye-appealing films seen in years.  Who knew all these tiny secrets were kept hidden in the heartland of Columbus, Indiana, (birthplace of sitting Vice-President Mike Pence), a small Midwest town that is showcased like never before.  THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (1995) gave rise to massive tourist interest where a curious public wanted to see those historical bridges in their original settings, driving through various country roads to get there, while this may have a similar effect to the tourist business of Columbus, as this film gives it a unique appeal that is nothing less than eye-opening.  Envisioned by a first-time director, Korean-born Kogonada, who was writing a Ph.D. dissertation on Ozu when he realized he wanted to be a filmmaker himself, better known for conceiving online video essays, which includes the infamous Kubrick One-Point Perspective, many of which can be seen on Vimeo here: https://vimeo.com/kogonada.  In a strange twist, much of the dialogue is actually spoken too quietly, barely above a whisper, where bits and pieces may be inaudible, but viewers won’t miss anything and can easily follow the path of the storyline, which is brilliantly written, enhanced by the performances of its two stars, John Cho, more familiar as Sulu in the Star Trek (2009) movies, and Hayley Lu Richardson, a welcome surprise who resembles Jennifer Grey in DIRTY DANCING (1987), an All-American girl whose warmth and sweetness overrides her obvious talent and intellectual insight, yet her moral integrity is impeccable.  The two come together almost by accident, as Cho plays Jin, the son of a famous Korean architect who is in town to give a speech on architecture, but suffers a heart attack, leaving him in a coma, with his son flying in from Seoul to be at his side, met in the hospital by his wife, none other than Parker Posey, who is something of a scholar in her own right.  Richardson, on the other hand, plays Casey, a home town resident working in the library while voluntarily leading architectural tours, who was planning to attend the speech before it was abruptly cancelled, and overhears Jin in the hospital speaking about his father.   

It’s surprising to discover an old-fashioned town of 46,000 is home to a staggering number of public works projects, more than 60 civic buildings designed by some of the famous names of 20th century architecture, with seven currently designated as national historic landmarks (Seven national historic landmarks in one small ... - Columbus, Indiana).  First and foremost, in terms of the film, is The Inn at Irwin Gardens (irwingardens.com), a beautiful stone structure set amongst trees and gardens overlooking a vast expanse of freshly mowed green grass leading to a wall of imposing trees that can feel mesmerizing, while the ornate interior, as Jin confesses, moving into the room reserved by his father, feels like living inside a museum, where he’s afraid he’ll break something.  The opulence on display greets viewers with a sign of what’s to come, as every shot is perfectly framed, where the exact precision is like a moving art exhibit, with the director integrating the neo-futuristic architectural works of Eero and Eliel Saarinen, Myron Goldsmith, Kevin Roche, Harry Weese, Cesar Pelli, Richard Meier, Deborah Berke, Robert Venturi, Michael Van Valkenburgh, Eliot Noyes, I.M. Pei, and Pei’s protégé James Polshek, among others (All of the architects of Columbus – a list) throughout his film, leading 20th-century figures whose works are infused with the imaginations of other masterminds, like sculptor Henry Moore, but also including interior designers and landscape architects, where the post office, newspaper offices, banks, churches, libraries, fire stations, ice-cream shop (with marble counters and a self-playing organ), city hall, courthouses, even the prison, along with other brilliantly designed structures become the strongest component of the film, where lives exist within the shadow of public art installations, whose daunting influence imposes its will over all, where few can fail to be moved by the harmonious beauty of these designs.  In this way, the present meets the past with an everpresent look toward the future, exploring something fundamental about what it is to be human.  Shot in just 18 days, using drawings ahead of time from Japanese illustrator Mihoko Takata who designed six of the film’s scenes, all without ever visiting Columbus, the film examines the complicated relationship each lead character has with their parents, as Jin was basically estranged from his father, never really trusting the influence of architecture, while Casey’s mother is a recovering meth addict now working in a packaging plant, believing she needs to stay at home to take care of her, as she may fall into relapse without her, even if that means foregoing her own future.  Despite these differences, the two embark on a friendship, with Casey overhearing him speaking Korean on the phone, surprised to learn he speaks English.  Both are intelligent and well-educated, with Casey having a longstanding interest in architecture, studying the influence it has in her home town, where its immediate effect is more personal with her, while Jin views it from afar, believing it was crammed down his throat by his father, so he’s familiar with the artists and their theories, but the emotional abyss that stands between himself and his father clouds any and all interest, so instead he’s fascinated by what draws Casey to it, as there’s an understated, near invisible force driving her passion.  Throughout the film they visit various sites, commenting on what they think, offering personal revelations, where the candid conversational style resembles the spontaneity of Richard Linklater’s BEFORE TRILOGY, though it never rises to a level of romanticism or sexual interest, just a budding friendship, exploring the impact they have on each other, which seems to shift and change as they go along. 

Many may think the roots of this film may be Roberto Rossellini’s divorce among the ruins film, Journey to Italy (1954), where the visualization of the camera integrates character, in particular the psychological mindset of Ingrid Bergman, with the remnants of decaying artworks scattered around Naples, mirroring her deteriorating relationship, suggesting an impermanence in human relationships, a film that may have opened the door to modernism.  But a closer inspection suggests it may actually be closer to Antonioni, who specialized in creating a sense of space between characters in order to heighten the emotional distance, framing his films with an almost mathematical precision, shooting through doorways, windows, or hallways, always acutely aware of architectural lines, as if the camera was peering at the characters through the prism of history and Western civilization.  Antonioni was cinema’s premiere modernist, creating profound meditations on emptiness, with isolated characters searching for meaning in the boredom of their rich and comfortable bourgeois lives, finding themselves disoriented by the changing landscape, where the weight of classicism has been replaced by sleek modernist structures with glassy exteriors, using electronic-infused sound designs to enhance alienation.  This sounds like what Kogonada has in mind, also writing and editing the film, bringing to light the blind spots in his characters, exploring what’s holding them back, especially when surrounded by such massively expressive architectural works that seem to be speaking out to them, beckoning them, radically breaking from the past, exploring new ideas in design, making conceptual use of space, at times therapeutically integrated with the surrounding natural world, which impacts viewers in a symbiotic manner, calling out to and challenging their basic instincts, impacting how they feel, if only they can learn to read the signals.  In this sense, Kogonada is actually building on the Antonioni legacy of existentialism, as these buildings have a fixed position, a place of permanency, offering a restorative energy, even a consoling power of healing, like spirits that speak in the night, or ghosts of the past, unnoticed, largely forgotten, like submerged memories that only come to life when we choose to think of them, as the film literally asks what it means to live in a modern world.  While reaching for the profound, much of the film, rather humorously, takes place during smoking breaks, momentary pauses where people fill empty space, where near the end of the film Rory Culkin, Casey’s coworker at the library, finally confesses that he doesn’t even smoke, but just wanted to spend some time with her.  It’s a heartfelt confession with underlying overtones, but it also speaks to her human value and worth, something she questions throughout the film, wondering if there is more that she could do.  There is no mistaking, however, the closeness of her relationship to her mother, the polar opposite of Jin and his father, though both of their thoughts evolve over time, aided by their companionship.  Jin explains what he would be expected to do if he was living in Korea, which is stand by his father’s side to the bitter end, as a son should not allow his father to die alone.  But he simply doesn’t feel that way, as he can’t manufacture a closeness that doesn’t exist.  Now that his father is in a coma, it doesn’t close the distance or change how he feels about him.  Casey finds that view appalling and crude, almost prehistoric, where there is certainly room for growth.  Shot by cinematographer Elisha Christian, this is no ordinary indie film, but is a small gem that reaches for exalted heights, a coming-of-age story that  defies the typical sexual exploration and instead involves an intellectual awakening, where a sense of urgency accompanies each character’s curiosity, literally celebrating the purpose of the people and places that surround us.  Accentuated by a heightened sensory experience, Kogonada’s own sound design along with atmospheric music from an original score by the two-man Nashville band Hammock, the film challenges how art can effect human behavior, becoming a meditative study of human interaction, exploring a friendship that arises out of troubled circumstances, where emotions resonate among some of the most extraordinary fixtures of modern architecture.