风韵继母

　　马里斯特拉扎被称为建筑界的艺术家和大师，他所设计的建筑被同行奉为典范。在某个，一幢马里斯特拉扎的代表作拔地而起，然而这里却发生了惨绝人寰的凶案。许多无辜之人被砌在墙壁中，浇筑水泥窒息而死，这幢大楼也从此废弃。　　15年后，年轻美丽的女拆迁工程师萨曼莎（Mischa Barton 饰）自学校毕业，她从父亲手中得到拆毁那幢大楼的任务。萨曼莎独自一人前来，在这里认识了女管理员玛丽•苏特（Shannon Jardine 饰）和她的儿子吉米（Cameron Bright 饰）。从母子的口中，萨曼莎得知这幢大楼的一些禁忌，而在吉米的引导下，她逐渐发现这里阴暗的一面……

 改编自赛珍珠的普立兹奖小说，是好莱坞在三十年代开始注意东方题材的代表性作品。影片虽是描写中国农村夫妇的悲剧故事，但主角均由美国人扮演，导演悉尼．弗兰克林也采取西方古典电影的风格来处理，在制作上相当严谨认真。剧情描写保罗．茂尼与路易丝．莱娜本来是贫困的农民，面对饥荒的威胁甚至以烤土充饥。后来茂尼得到了一笔财富，竟整天花天酒地迷恋情妇，莱娜只有发挥贤妻的耐性期待丈夫浪子回头。今天看来类似故事已显得老套，但本片的拍摄与特技表现杰出，路易丝．莱娜亦获得奥斯卡最佳女主角奖。

　　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.

　　时尚的餐厅大都市“莫奈”红红火火。正是在这里，维克和马克西姆要庆祝期待已久的婚礼。但计划有变，当餐厅是规定会谈俄罗斯和法国的总统！餐厅队惨败，被迫进入“流亡” - 在巴黎举行。有厨师用马克斯面临危险的竞争对手：厨师 - 与近亲，和马克西姆 - 与一个英俊的尼古拉斯，谁转过头比维克起泡酒香槟更好！而这还不是他的“全城热恋”中的所有挑战，你应该试着挽回面子，喂总统和克服障碍万元点菜法国文化……