花音うらら – My Girl

　　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.

　　说来平平无奇，奇在竟煞是好看。娓娓道来自己过去一天的是新锐摄影师彼得胡渣，请他到香闺畅谈的是知名作家莲达罗森克兰兹。本打算将纽约艺术圈好友的生活日常结集成书，书出不成，抄本却奇迹留下，让埃拉萨克斯看得心神一动，在一室之内以灵巧多变的镜头摆位，重塑1974年那平凡却奇妙的一天。请来《欲流双行道》的宾韦沙念55页独白，三分型格三分忧郁再带三分初成名的忐忑。漫溢于16米厘的光影质感之间，是安迪华荷、苏珊桑塔格那一代人浸透于生活的艺术灵光。

　　年轻漂亮的凯拉得了一种奇怪的疾病，她的皮肤开始老化，干裂和瓦解。当她发现她可以用别人的皮肤来替代自己的皮肤时，她必须做出选择，看着自己的躯体枯萎死亡，还是屈服于诱惑，不管代价如何。

　　米歇尔•法尔盖特（休•格兰特 饰）经营一间拍卖行，他是个温和的英国人，拍卖行的生意一向很好。他感觉成家的时候到了，便向他最爱的女友吉娜（詹姆斯•凯恩 饰）结婚。可是吉娜对结婚一词十分抗拒，她不愿意跟米歇尔结婚。这样使米歇尔疑惑极了，他认为女友是十分爱自己的，为何不能从此一同生活呢？　　直到后来，他才明白了吉娜的苦心。原来吉娜的父亲是一名黑帮老大，深爱着米歇尔的吉娜不愿自己的丈夫被卷进复杂的黑帮环境中。就算米歇尔向吉娜保证自己不会牵涉进去那些麻烦当中。　　可是事情并不如人意，他还是因为这个黑帮岳父惹来了很多麻烦，甚至被警察调查。从此，米歇尔也莫名其妙的成为了黑道中人……