阿凡达：火与烬

　　2001年11月，阿富汗加兹尼省。一支来自美国的特种部队小分队与CIA探员本杰明·凯恩斯（乔纳斯·鲍尔 Jonas Ball 饰）在此碰头，他们要在当地寻找一个名叫莫罕默德•阿班的男人。在线人阿布尔（Chems-Eddine Zinoune 饰）的引导下，他们来到据说莫罕默德藏身的山区。这里流传着恐怖的传说，在半个多世纪前英国就曾有一支上万人的部队在此地凭空消失。从特种队员踏入这片陌生领域的那一刻起，恐怖离奇的事件便如影随形。队员们接连失踪，他们仿佛走入一条通往黑暗世界的不归之路……
　　本片荣获2008年纽约恐怖电影节观众奖最佳摄影奖、2008年墨西哥圣塔菲电影节Milagro奖最佳摄影奖。

　　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.

　　The year is 2047. Our planet is ruled by the repressive Confederate Central Government (CCG). Ryan is a Green War rebel agent sent on a mission by Sponge (Danny Glover) to collect evidence against the CCG for its heinous crimes. Ryan soon faces the sinister Colonel Asimov, Major Anderson and a group of mercenaries lead by Lobo. Ryan's mission quickly turns chaotic when he meets Tuage, a mutant survivor of the CCG rebellion who swears to help Ryan save what is left of their world - or does she?