妻子们的一切

　　美国德州一所高中，以布莱德利（贾斯廷·阿诺德 Justin Arnold 饰）为首的一众男女学生风生水起，横行霸道，经常以欺负人为乐趣。印度裔学生莱比（Vincent Silochan 饰）、瘦小的戴恩（马克·多纳托 Marc Donato 饰）和有些内向自闭的女孩艾米莉（林德赛·西德尔 Lindsay Seidel 饰）等人更是他们优先欺负的对象。学校的状况已然如此，与亲人的关系又分外冷淡和紧张，戴恩他们的生活看不到一点儿希望。　　8个月前，戴恩的叔叔去世，留给他一座偌大的农场作遗产。饱受欺负且试图自杀的他找到和自己同病相怜的几个人，他们决定把学校的小霸王们请到举行派对，在劲歌热舞之中展开准备已久的血腥复仇……

 该片是押井守参与制作的一部动画电影。获2002年斯图加特国际动画电影节最佳长篇奖，获2001年日本文化厅文化厅MEDIA艺术祭动画大赏。1966年秋天，越南战争期间，在日本国内的美国空军横田基地内，不时可见F4幻影战斗机频繁起降，空气中充斥着一股杀戮的气氛；就在此时，基地附近的市区连续发生了离奇的命案。 地下铁，银座线，正驶著通往浅草的最后一班列车，一名少女出现在空荡的车厢内，她拥有令大人感到刺眼的眼神，紧闭着双存欲诉说她内心的真正意念，她的名字叫小夜(SAYA)；她是“组织”为了打倒潜伏于人类社会里的吸血鬼“翼手”，因而派遣至人类社会的救世主。 穿着水手服的小夜，手持日本武士刀作为武器，潜入了基地内的美国学校。一柄冷血无情的武士刀，是她消除邪魔、保护人类的武器。而她身体里这一半的人性，可能就是她打败敌人的秘诀……

　　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.