善良的女秘书的目的

　　核子战争浩劫一直是人类社会挥之不去的阴影，万一在哪一天真的爆发了核战，那将会是什么景象呢？这部尼古拉斯．迈耶导演的电视电影就是根据这种推测拍成的作品，用写实手法刻划美国堪萨斯州劳伦斯市发生核弹爆炸后的各种景况，从而探讨外在世界的变化和人性的内在演变，主题具省思意识，在1983年美国首播时曾造成极大轰动。几位主要演员：贾森．罗巴兹、乔拜兹．威廉斯、史蒂夫．加顿伯格、约翰．李斯可、埃米．马迪根等均有紧扣人心的精彩演出。

　　讲述一个看门人被困在一个女厕所，遇到一批僵尸的攻击……

　　通过一部伪纪录片《未解之谜》五个故事娓娓道来：警察进入古宅寻找孩子遭遇神秘生物；一群印度狗仔队发现宝莱坞女星并非镜头般光鲜亮丽；几个朋友必须在遭遇外星人入侵之后与客机相撞的高空跳伞中幸存；动物权利组织闯进痛失爱犬的女士住宅后将经历至暗时刻；以及一位沙漠中的母亲调查莫哈韦沙漠幽浮飞船后成为飞船偷渡者……

　　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.