東京殘酷警察

　　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.

　　佩特拉（瑪吉特·卡斯滕森 Margit Carstensen 飾）是一位小有名氣的女畫家，和丈夫結婚多年，兩人養育了一個女兒。然而，隨著時間的推移，佩特拉發現自己越來越看不起虛偽冷漠的丈夫，不自由的婚姻生活令她感到窒息，于是，她選擇了離婚　　經朋友西朵妮（Katrin Schaake 飾）的介紹，佩特拉結識了名為卡琳（漢娜·許古拉 Hanna Schygulla 飾）的美國女子，趣味相投的兩人很快就彼此吸引，開始了她們的同居生活。佩特拉供養著卡琳，并且積極地將她引入時裝模特的行列，然而，卡琳卻將佩特拉的愛意視為束縛，最終她選擇了離開。失去了卡琳，佩特拉的生活陷入一片混亂，漸漸走向崩潰的邊緣。

　　影片講述的是一位新媽媽 Mary （克里斯蒂·柏克 飾）保護新生兒 Adam（Grace Christensen 飾）的故事。Mary 生了一對雙胞胎，但其中只有 Adam 存活了下來。在照顧 Adam 的過程中她瘋狂地認為有某種超自然的實體在不惜任何代價地把 Adam 從她身邊帶走。

27歲的由嘉里沉迷于擬人化燒肉漫畫《肉即吾命》，卻始終無法接納真實的自己。面對朋友們紛紛步入婚姻與家庭，她感到焦慮與孤獨，嘗試通過相親改變現狀，卻屢遭不順，醉倒在歌舞伎町街頭。此時，她被陪酒女萊伊救起，兩人由此展開一段微妙的關系。隨后，由嘉里又結識了已婚男公關朝日，三人各自背負著不同的生活壓力，卻在彼此陪伴中逐漸找到歸屬與勇氣。                                                                      　　影片改編自金原瞳撰寫的同名小說。