西西里的美丽传说

　　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.

　　平凡女人杰莎贝尔（莎拉·斯努克 Sarah Snook 饰）与男友普瑞斯顿（马克·韦伯 Mark Webber 饰）即将迎来新的生命，当他们准备搬入新家之际，却遭遇一场突如其来的车祸。这场灾难让当下两个最重要的生命从杰莎贝尔的人生中消失，痛不欲生的她拨通了久未谋面的父亲的电话，坐着轮椅回到了位于路易斯安那的老家。某天，杰莎偶然在床下找到一卷母亲当年生她之前录下的影像，画面中妈妈期望女儿能在18岁那年看到录影带，而且用塔罗牌预测了杰莎未来的运势。预言中有一个看不见的灵魂逡巡在杰莎的身旁，而对方却满怀恶意企图将杰莎赶出房子。　　在此之后，诡异的梦境和神秘事件接连向杰莎袭来，而她将遭遇最为恐怖的一段噩梦体验……

　　公元22世纪，因为人口过度膨胀、过度开发、环境极度恶化、食物也消耗殆尽。人类想要存活下去，就必须要到宇宙中去寻找新的可以栖身的星球。因此制造了一艘当时最先进的太空飞船，去考察发现的一颗可能适宜人类生存的星球。罗伯逊（威廉·赫特 William Hurt  饰）一家被选中担负起了这次探索使命，他们将用10年的时间前往阿尔法星球。可是，这次担负起全人类命运的任务却有反对的声音，部分邪恶势力妄图阻止这次任务。所以，当罗伯逊一家驾驶太空船刚进入太空的预定轨道时，反对派史密斯博士暗中进行破坏，导致飞船脱离的正常的轨道迫降到了一颗不知名的星球上。飞船上邪恶势力的阻挠，不知名星球上的种种危机，如何才能重新设定新的航线……各种问题困惑着罗伯逊一家，他们真的就此迷失太空，无法到达目的地了吗？人类的命运将何去何从？

　　焦急的母親菈葵兒（艾瑪蘇雷茲飾演）到銀行借錢，她必須在24小時內籌到35000歐元（約新台幣130萬元），否則她將再也見不到心愛的女兒。經過不斷懇求，銀行終於同意借款給她救急。不料在貸款手續快要完成之時，兩個蒙面搶匪闖入銀行，不但搶走所有錢，就連在場所有顧客與行員都成為人質。在分秒必爭的險境當中，菈葵兒決定無論付出什麼代價，都一定要拿到這筆錢全身而退…。究竟她該如何保住性命？又該如何籌錢保住女兒呢？