脱轨边缘人

　　亚利桑那州的枪枝商店内，白人男孩负责买枪，再交由开卡车的墨西哥少年穿越美墨边境，运到贩毒大本营西纳洛亚。毒枭媲美军队的强大火力，拜美国松散的枪械管制之赐。少年工作如常，浑然不觉已被资深探员汉克盯上，但正当汉克准备逮捕他们时，却反遭撂倒沦为人质。不知所措的墨西哥少年，竟决定带他回墨西哥。分属对立阵营的两人，就此命运紧紧相连，开向未知。　　导演加布里埃尔·利普斯坦获第65届柏林电影节最佳处女作奖。

早苗的恋人，在雨夜惨死于都市传说中「祸祸女」的诅咒之下——传闻这只女鬼带着潮湿的黑发，循着背叛者的气息索命。亲眼目睹恋人被拖入黑暗的早苗，被无尽的恐惧与恨意啃噬，她循着「祸祸女」的传说碎片，踏入被诅咒笼罩的阴暗角落。调查中，她撞见无数令人寒毛倒竖的诡异异象，每一步追查都在揭开恋人死亡背后的谎言，那只游荡的女鬼，始终在她身后带着冰冷的注视，等着她看清藏在黑暗里的真相。

　　一位貌似耶稣的小偷（Horácio Salinas 饰）从儿童们的石块击打中醒来，与一个无手无脚的侏儒结伴进入城市。城中正进行一场疯狂的庆典，一些人被杀死，鸟雀从他们的枪口中飞出，大量蟾蜍穿着印第安人以及欧洲殖民者的服装在混战中被炸的粉碎。小偷从几个罗马士兵打扮的人手中接过十字架，又被他们将自身的形象制造成无数模型……小偷在众目睽睽下爬上了一座能生产黄金的高塔，塔内的术士从小偷的粪便中提炼出了金子。术士用占星术确认了几位门徒，他们是生产面具的商人、武器商、艺术家、玩具商、政府顾问、军队长官和建筑师，七人分别代表不同的行星。术士把这些掌控国家的人物积聚一起，抛弃一切之后向传说中的圣山进发寻找不朽的秘密。

　　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.