欲海情花

　　「为什么大家讨厌警察？」男孩询问母亲。身为警察的史黛芬妮，负责的却是警察暴力与失职案件调查。2018年，一名青年随亲友来到巴黎参与街头抗议，却因警方开枪，导致永久性脑部损伤。家人提出指控，警方却矢口否认，关键证据亦是不足。内外压力夹攻之下，史黛芬妮仍奋力调查，调阅摄像头比对、还原警员动线，越逼近真相之际，同僚的敌意也越发强烈⋯⋯

　　本片以300年前的科曼奇族为背景，讲述了一个名叫纳鲁的年轻女子的故事，她是一位凶猛且技艺高超的战士。她在大平原上一些传奇的猎人阴影下长大，所以当危险威胁到她的营地时，她要保护她的族人。当她发现自己面对的猎物是一个高度进化的外星掠食者，且拥有先进的技术武器，一场恶战开始了！

　　大石刚介（三船敏郎 饰）升任关东同盟理事长，与中岛组佐仓一诚（佐分利信 饰）势均力敌，维持着表面的和平。但日本政界要员大山喜久夫（片冈千惠藏 饰）因癌症病倒，几乎再次点燃两派战火。大山幸得一宫恭夫（高桥悦史 饰）医治死里逃生，因此号召帮派联合，遭到两派抵制。　　此时塞班岛开发项目成为抗争的导火索。中岛组干部川西（菅原文太 饰）为筹措资金，强令木村建设破产，并将木村之女献给保守党要员刈田（西村晃 饰）。另一方面，大石拉拢刈田的儿子春男入伙，作为特使赴塞班岛向美国官员行贿。大山暗示佐仓除去大石，一场搅和了黑帮、政客、外国人的纷争就此展开，而佐仓似乎也朝日本首领的目标又迈进了坚实的一步……

　　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.