Review of The Goddess of 1967 (2000) by Tony B — 03 May 2007

On a basic level, it's a tale of contrasts. That of a naive, young Japanese man (Rikiya Kurokawa) and a blind Australian girl, Deidre (Rose Byrne). The movie tells of their journey through the Australian outback after the Japanese man travels to Australia in search of the car of his dreams, a classic French Citroen, or, 'The Goddess', have one guess what year its from.. Of course it's much deeper than that. The trip is not a vacation, but a journey of release particularly for the young woman who has been tormented for most of her short life by the horrible memories of her mother and grandfather. Unbeknownst to the young man he has been taken on a ride that will open his eyes to a world he never knew existed. In return, Deidre, encounters many things she has never experienced before from a man, compassion, honesty and true love.

There is one brilliant scene i'll never forget where he teaches her to dance in a lonely bar in the middle of nowhere. To see the joy in the face of someone who has, in her unfortunate life, rarely experienced such feelings is truly uplifting. I had to watch that scene more than once. It's no doubt the coolest dance scene since Pulp Fiction. In the end, Deidre, finds the peace she is looking for. Perhaps not in the way she thought she might, but she does. And that's something she so much deserves.

And performance wise, this film is perfect. Kurokawa does a brilliant job, but this is Rose Byrne's film here. This is by far THE performance of her career, which is weird to say considering it was one of her first films, and this is way before she even got started in any hollywood projects. Plus she won Best Actress at the Venice film festival for this, considering in the recent past that same award was given to Helen Mirren, Julianne Moore, and Imelda Staunton, you know it has to be good.