村在天堂邊

在索馬里沙漠的一個偏遠村莊，一個小男孩和爸爸、姑姑一同生活。父親靠臨時工作支撐家用，姑姑因為婚姻危機無奈躲到此處。他們樸素的心愿因為混亂不安的社會環境變得遙不可及，但家人之間仍充滿溫情瞬間。索馬里裔奧地利導演莫·哈拉韋的長片首作通過一個臨時家庭的境遇來展現動蕩時局對個人生活的吞噬。導演溫柔看待三位主人公，他以精致的構圖和色彩，在有條不紊的節奏下，安靜有力地鋪陳越發緊迫的生存之戰。本片是首部入圍2024年戛納電影節的索馬里題材影片，并一舉入圍一種關注單元和導演首作金攝影機獎兩大單元。

三十一

　　萬圣節前一天，五名狂歡節員工被綁架挾持到一個稱為“肅殺世界”的孤立院子。在萬圣節時，他們會被扔進一個名叫“31”的虐待狂的游戲中，他們將面對一群穿得像小丑一樣的瘋子。然而，小丑并不是唯一需要擔心的，一個更宏大的邪教儀式和更殘酷的陰謀將被喚醒......

等待方舟

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.

第27天生死劫