危險的激情

老兄救命

卡薩諾瓦1976

 意大利導演費德里克．費里尼的中期經典作《八部半》是其成熟高峰期作品，此后開始走向糜爛而至腐敗，偏于肉欲放縱和自我沉溺，像《費里尼之薩蒂尼康》（六九年）和本片，都是糜爛頹廢的出色力作。本片反映了十八世紀基督道德不振后的上流腐化放縱，費里尼盡情借題發揮，展現出精英文藝在人欲橫流下的腐爛情態。大情人卡薩諾華是在情場屢戰屢勝的“性斗士"，不斷獵艷，還參加造愛競賽。但這大情人苦于人人只重他的性愛能力，不重視他經世濟民治國的才學。而且女人們對他都“有性無愛"，當他衰老得失去性魅力之后，就只能把一個機械女人當作夢中情人，很可悲可憐。

等待方舟

　　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.

羅伯特玩偶的復仇

　　在納粹德國，玩具制造商擁有一本神秘的書籍，賦予無生命的生命。在躲過希特勒命令取回書的黨衛軍之后，這位玩具商登上了一列火車企圖逃離該國。認為他很清楚，玩具制造商很快就發現，一批高級納粹軍官也加入進來。最終，他的秘密被揭露出來，納粹關閉。但是，玩具制造商已經使用這個神奇的東西來帶來一個名叫羅伯特的復古娃娃來生活 - 而羅伯特將毫無阻礙地保護他的主人。所以，當玩具制造商和殺手娃娃拿起納粹時，就開始了一場血腥的戰斗。這是對死亡的一場戰斗，只有勝利者才會在下一站下車。