巨人來襲

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.

互幫互助

 本片改編自同名小說，講述了主人公·梓失去了無可替代的摯友而止步不前，她不斷給已故好友發送信息，由此開始，意想不到的邂逅接連發生，形成了一個巨大的圈子…

生人活祭

　　媒體從業人員帕特里克·卡特（肯塔克爾·德利 Kentucker Audley 飾）意外聯系到了失蹤許久的姐姐卡羅琳（艾米·西米茨 Amy Seimetz 飾）。卡羅琳當初曾在戒毒所治療，如今住進了一個名為“圣伊甸園”的地方，并自稱過上了烏托邦般的生活。為了弄清姐姐的下落，帕特里克和同事兼好友山姆·特納（AJ·鮑恩 AJ Bowen 飾）、杰克·威廉姆斯（喬·斯萬博格 Joe Swanberg 飾）啟程前往圣伊甸園的所在地調查。這座樂園位于一個鮮為人知的隱秘所在，許許多多生活中經歷痛苦和坎坷的人們，在“父親”（吉恩·瓊斯 Gene Jones 飾）的感召和撫慰下重獲新生。　　出于媒體人的敏感，山姆取得了和“父親”對談的機會，但他卻從對方幽默機智的談吐中嗅到了一絲殺氣……