In the months after my serious car smash on 26 August 2008, in which I lost my first car, I spent several months trying to determine how this could happen to me and somewhat desperately searched for answers, still in the phase of my depression period at the sudden shock and loss of losing my car. Not having my parents help me out only made it harder even so. Then this feature documentary came along. From nowhere. I saw it advertised on television one night in early March 2009, and in the ten seconds or so it was advertised, I was mesmerised. Here was a feature documentary that mirrors somewhat closely with the long life I had with my first car and losing it in the most tragic of circumstances. The film was released in Australian cinemas on 12 March, 2009. I saw it a few days later. Love the Beast tells of the story of Australian actor, Eric Bana, and his lifelong obsession with his first car, a 1974 Ford Falcon XB Coupe, which he first saw racing around Mount Panorama, Bathurst, in the 1977 Bathurst 1000 and again in the 1979 film, Mad Max. From there, his obsession with that particular car began. When he was 15, after much fraught discussions with his father, he eventually managed to wrangle a used Ford Falcon XB Coupe of his own. It was his first car. Like Eric, I too managed to have a car from a young age. I practically had my first car since I was 9, although it was my mother’s car which she purchased as brand new, a 1989 Honda Concerto EXi. I spent my childhood and …