Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocau...
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.
井上正大,户谷公人,福士苍汰,高桥龙辉,千眼美子,吉泽亮,坂田梨香子,富森贾斯汀,志保,土屋紫苑,渡部秀,高田里穗,奥田达士,秋山莉奈,石丸谦二郎,小泽亮太,山田裕贵,市道真央,清水一希,小池唯,池田纯矢,铃木胜大,马场良马,小宫有纱
須賀貴匡,松田悟志,杉山彩乃
陈思诺,蒋勤勤,王千源,安沺,方东海,方青卓,郭涛,柳如风
迈克尔·比恩,道格·科克尔,瑞克·冈萨雷斯,达米恩·C·哈斯,劳伦·霍尔特,Lindsay LaVanchy,Jeff Leach,谢拉米·李,Alessa Luz Martinez,彼得·迈克尔,安德鲁·莫尔加多,路易斯·小泽·张简,布洛克·鲍威尔,菲利斯·索利斯,Britton Watkins,Alex Albrecht,James Bannon,Jeffrey Cannata,Jonathan Dixon,梅尔·法尔
安娜·奇波夫斯卡娅,亚历山大·昆泽内斯特罗夫,安德烈·梅尔兹利金
埃里克·罗伯茨,Juliet Chevelle,P. Michael Hayes II