绯闻III

　　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.

　　《红指甲》备受人际关系困扰的公司职员石田（山下智久 饰）回家途中意外拐错了叉路口，险些丧命。据说走错叉路口的人绝对不可以把看到的东西告诉别人，否则对方将遭遇不幸。某晚，石田突然想起了那一天看到的景象。《被诅咒的病室》新人护士佐野爱莉（刚力彩芽 饰）偶然发现，居住在308病房的病人，去世前总会凝视着病房屋顶某个地方，那里似乎有什么东西存在。《右肩之女》近段时间，青年利也（冈田将生 饰）总是感觉肩膀很沉，他颇有些灵力的女友告诉他，他的右肩待着一位大婶；《午夜末班车》男子（スギちゃん 饰）看错时间，错过了一个小时前的地铁末班车。正当他懊悔之际，他的眼前停靠了一辆空无一人的列车；《夏日回忆》聪美（香里奈 饰）不久前与爱慕自己的青梅竹马好友小悠（菅田将晖 饰）生离死别，某天晚上，小悠的身影出现在聪美床头……

　　在一个陌生的城市醒来，一个对自己是谁没有记忆的人必须面对自己身份的谜团。但他不顾一切地寻找自己的过去，使他与强大的敌人对抗，导致一场决战，这将决定他的命运并揭示他的真实身份。——哥斯拉