血恋

　　影片围绕一个来自俄克拉荷马州的美国石油钻井平台钻工比尔(达蒙饰)展开。他不得不前往马赛，拜访他久未谋面却锒铛入狱的女儿(布雷斯林饰)，他的女儿坚称并没有犯下谋杀罪。面对语言的障碍、文化的差异，以及复杂的法律制度，比尔决意孤注一掷拯救他的女儿。而在这个过程中，他与一位当地的女性和她的小女儿建立了友谊，也开始了个人的探索之旅，并获得了更大的归属感。

 明朝年间，锦衣卫陆钦因罪被发配充军，途中因缘际会，与樊英押送贪官张嵩回京指认通敌太监王公公。经过生死追逃，最终陆钦牺牲，张嵩抵京，却被王公公处死于监牢。多年后，王公公被樊英击杀，善恶终得报。

　　他（Method Man 饰）是一个沉默的男子，永远礼帽风衣，沉默地穿梭在这座道德沦丧、破败绝望的城市的大街小巷。死亡每天发生，司空见惯，不知天高地厚的年轻人们呼啸而过，挥霍生命。白天他是市殡仪馆的殡仪师，以娴熟专业且庄重的手法清理残破不堪的尸体，带死者走过最后一程；夜晚则端坐那间被暴怒吵闹的邻居所包围的小屋里，细心制作动物标本，为他们的主人找回最后的安慰。　　某天，一具女性尸体在他死水般的内心世界引起涟漪。尸体上纹有波提切利的名作《维纳斯诞生》，似曾相识的图案勾起了他对往事的回忆。城市的自毁仍在继续，他也无法永保平静……

　　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.