天鵝中的狼

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.

六號關口

　　After serving two years on a military outpost in the middle of an ocean – four soldiers are waiting for a new crew to replace them. When the long-awaited boat finally appears, it’s empty with no relief on board. When trying to find out what happened to the boat and the missing crew, they realize they’ve lost all communications with home. Cut off from the rest of the world and no one coming to get them, Baines, Sullivan, Cassidy and Hendryx must fight with suspicions about each other and find a new way to get home. If home still exists.

非禮勿視

　　八個感化院的青年在兩名警官的監督下，前往鄉間一所破敗的客棧中接受社區服務，但是他們的到來卻無意中驚醒一個沉寂已久的惡魔。雅克布?古德奈特 飾（Glen Jacobs 格蘭“凱恩”雅克布 飾），身高七英尺，體重四百磅，頭骨里嵌著一個生銹的鐵盤，鋒利的指甲足夠戳穿對手眼睛的精神病患者?！　⊙趴瞬妓哪昵霸痪俑ヌm克?威廉姆斯（Steven Vidler 飾）槍擊頭部，卻僥幸逃生。如今弗蘭克正是這群青年的督導員。弗蘭克和孩子們的出現激起了雅克布屠殺的欲望，他舉起巨斧，將客棧變作血腥的屠宰場……

分秒間離

　　在一次尋常的大學生家庭派對上，荷爾蒙過剩的青年們盡情玩耍。然而當晚卻發生了一起血腥慘劇，數名校隊運動員在地下室玩俄羅斯輪盤賭，最終導致4人身亡。在此之后，蘭普金警探（Orlando Jones 飾）受命調查此事，并走訪了死亡大學生所在的教會學校。通過對死者朋友們的盤查，他將盤問對象所定在喬納（Edund Entin 飾）和賽斯（Gary Entin 飾）身上?！　碳{和賽斯是一對俊美的雙胞胎，他們有著極高的智商，卻為周圍的同學所不容，共同視他們二人為怪胎。他們雖然經常拿著攝像機在學校走來走去，不過早已被他人當作空氣。隨著蘭普金調查的深入，這對神秘兄弟的關系也變得越來越微妙……

瑪麗和麥克斯

 1976年，8歲的瑪麗·黛西·丁格爾（貝絲妮·惠特摩爾 Bethany Whitmore 配音）是澳大利亞墨爾本的一個小女孩，喜歡動畫片“諾布利特”、甜煉乳和巧克力。瑪麗的媽媽是個酒鬼，而在茶葉包裝廠工作的父親平日只喜歡制作鳥標本。孤獨的瑪麗沒有朋友，某一天心血來潮給美國紐約市的馬克思·杰瑞·霍羅威茨（菲利普·塞默·霍夫曼 Philip Seymour Hoffman 配音）寫了一封信詢問美國小孩從哪里來，并附上一根櫻桃巧克力棒。44歲的馬克思患有自閉癥及肥胖，碰巧也喜歡看“諾布利特”動畫片及吃巧克力。二人的筆友關系從1976年維持到1994年，期間各自經歷了許多人生起伏，直到成年的瑪麗（托妮·科萊特 Toni Collette 配音）終于來到紐約看望馬克思……本片獲2009年法國昂錫國際動畫影展最佳動畫長片獎，柏林國際電影節水晶熊獎及渥太華國際動畫電影節最高獎。