可疑的繼母

　　1976年，一名會計師因莫須有的罪名，將面臨不公正的刑事判罰，他決心一斗到底。西班牙導演阿爾韋托·羅德里格斯（《千面人》）闊別6年重回大銀幕的新作，根據真實事件創作，于現已關閉的巴塞羅那莫德羅監獄內實景拍攝，回溯1976年弗朗哥去世后的西班牙民主過渡期。影片巧用突然驚嚇營造驚悚氣氛，反映獄警對犯人的多種慘無人道的摧殘；藉由民憤輪番上演花式越獄，點燃普通人的求生之火，強烈抨擊國家法律體系的不公。榮獲2023年西班牙戈雅獎16項提名，最終攬獲最佳美術指導等5項技術大獎。

　　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.

　　與丈夫（安東尼·拉帕格利亞飾）慶祝完結婚25周年后不久，丈夫出差在外，達西（瓊·艾倫）在車庫找電池，卻無意中發現丈夫就是新聞中說的“臭名昭著的連環殺手比蒂”。　　影片的小說藍本是金2010年出版的短篇小說集《暗夜無星》（Full Dark, No Stars）中的一篇。金在接受采訪時說，小說的靈感來自于2005年被捕的美國“BTK連環殺手”丹尼斯·雷德（Dennis Rader），他就有一位結婚三十四年的妻子寶拉（Paula），對他的殺人行為毫不知情。金表示，小說探討的是，人與人之間永遠不可能完全了解，即使是最愛的人也一樣。

　　卡洛比安奇和多里亞諾是兩個生活拮據的五十多歲男人，他們秉持著“絕不錯過最后一杯酒”的人生哲學。在一次偶然的機會中，他們結識了朱利奧，一位性格內向、對人生感到迷茫的建筑學學生。這場看似不經意的邂逅，卻逐漸演變成了一場穿越威尼斯平原的混亂公路旅行。　　在旅途中，糟糕的建議、宿醉的困擾以及意料之外的友情，不斷挑戰朱利奧對人生和愛情的原有計劃。這場旅程不僅重新定義了他們彼此的生活，也讓朱利奧開始重新思考自己的未來方向。