Buy posters from this movie

I judge you by the money you earn.

Your job is your status - the more high powered it is the better. The clothes you wear - the more expensive, the more designer labels you wear makes you a better person. The trips you take - expensive Mediterranean resorts, skiing in Austria (I hope you've never been skiing in Australia), lots of Atlantic crossings.

The bars you go to - the restricted access ones that have expensive drinks. The music you listen to, the films you see - they've got to be the right ones. The parties you go to - the exclusive corporate sponsored ones that everybody will be at - just as long as they're somebody special. The way you look - not a gram of fat if you're a girl, well toned muscles from time spent at your gym with your personal trainer if you're a man. The more money you spend, the better.

What you own is the essence of your being. Materialism is you.

JM (Kurokawa), a Japanese hyperconsumer living an ultramodern lifestyle in Tokyo, has a desire to buy a Citroen DS. Via the internet he finds that there is one in mint condition in Australia. He takes the flight down only to find that he's not met at the airport. He goes to the house where he thinks the owner lives only to find a blind girl, BG (Byrne). The car is there.

The car is perfect and JM immediately falls in love. BG's not the owner, but she knows who is. Will it take long to get to the owner? Yes, about eight-day's driving. So off they go on a journey to find the owner and themselves.

This is a film full of symbolism and demands a lot of thought. It's glacial pace is sleep inducing, but you find yourself liking it more and more as you ponder and learn more about what's going on.

The Citroen DS (DS is a French pun for Goddess) is a much-loved car. It was the techiest car around at the time with its self-leveling suspension system and central hydraulic system. A real must-have for those who insist of having the latest gadgets.

It was also breathtakingly beautiful. It was the epiphany of technological and design perfection. It was one of the final nominees for Car of the Century.

Professional thinking type, Roland Barthes described the Citroen DS as being held, "together by sole virtue of [its] wondrous shape, which of course is meant to prepare one for the idea of a more benign Nature." This is crucial characteristic for this film.

Both JM and BG live blinkered lives. BG in an obvious sense (and a not so obvious one), and JM in the sense that he leads this materialistic must-have lifestyle. He even buys the latest snorkeling equipment even though he only wears it around his small apartment.

The appeal of the car for JM was as a possession that he can collect. It instead provides a catalyst for JM - and BG - to break away and redeem themselves from the closed off, blinkered lifestyles they live to find atonement and their true nature.

While they're on their way doing that, the viewer is treated to a visual delight. The film has wonderful vivid, unreal colours (from a process called bleach bypassing - also used in Stigmata). Other visuals are also similarly unreal. This fits since the two leads have shut themselves off and away from the real world.

Byrne's performance is, at times, electrifying. Her character has a constant sense of being detached and not quite being all there and Byrne pulls it off with an assurance that belies her lack of film experience. Hope and McCredie are also excellent whilst Kurokawa leaves you wondering if his stilted manner is more to do with the character or the actor's ability.

Law's direction of this dreamscape of a film is imaginative and intricate - studied and thoughtful. The more I think about this film the more I like it.

 del.icio.us    
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=5154&reviewer=166
originally posted: 04/25/01 11:06:38
 printer-friendly format