错过

　　在一个平凡的美国小镇，同性恋男孩被人杀害，他的死却引起了广泛争议。自称代表上帝的牧师艾宾·库伯（麦克·帕克斯 Michael Parks 饰）带领信众游行示威，控诉着世间各种丑态与罪行。另一边，高中生特拉维斯（Michael Angarano 饰）、贾罗德（Kyle Gallner 饰）、比利-雷（Nicholas Braun 饰）却相约夜晚出行，寻找属于青春时代的放浪与刺激。谁知渴望狩猎的少年，反倒成了他人的猎物。他们落入库伯及其信众的陷阱，随时都会失去生命。　　另一方面，美国枪支管理局的特工约瑟夫·吉南（约翰·古德曼 John Goodman 饰）逐渐掌握库伯囤积枪支的证据，一场无关正义与道德缺失的攻防战即将展开……

 失意的小说家兼教授塞隆尼斯·“蒙克”·埃里森（杰弗里·怀特 Jeffrey Wright 饰）出于怨恨，用开玩笑的方式写了一本小说，书中充斥着古怪刻板印象的黑人形象。不料这本书出版后大受好评，不仅获得文学大奖，还被拍成电影。

　　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.