北地胭脂

在新疆无垠的静谧雪原上，一个逃离都市的年轻女孩，与一个将回忆锁进信笺的孤独老人，意外成为彼此的“临时家人”。他们一个学着与过去和解，一个学着向未来敞开，在极致纯净的天地间，共同写就一封关于温暖、陪伴与重新开始的冬日治愈诗篇。

在一次武装袭击失败后，海伦抛弃了她的同伴，逃进了森林，并遇到了凯瑟琳，一个神秘的另一个自我，一个充满野性且极具诱惑的分身。这个分身将带她来到一个奇幻的山谷，在那里，变形、邪恶的力量以及巨大的动荡很快就会打破原有的秩序。海伦将不得不重新审视自己的选择，以及那些限制着这些选择的道德、政治和人性方面的两难困境。

 1940年，北满抗联独立大队屡遭日军追袭，被迫在深山老林中不断转移，对外联系也已被日军切断。地下党龙泽群获知日军间谍独狼已潜入独立大队，一场惊心动魄的锄奸行动就此展开……该片展现了北满地区社会各界人士团结一致，反抗侵略的伟大精神。

　　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.