永远的好姐妹

　　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.

　　一场车祸后，林月家里怪事连连，全身冰冷的姐姐，镜子里看不见家人的身影，黑夜里爸爸窥探的双眼，每天凌晨阁楼传来的弹珠声，林月循声而上，当阁楼的门被打开，却发现里面紧锁的却是自己的遗像……

　　Chosen Family sees Ann, a yoga teacher trying to find inner peace despite the fact her family is manic, and whose dating life is miserable. Ann doesn’t know how to say no and finds herself fixing everyone’s problems. Struggling to repair her estranged relationship with her sister Clio, Ann relies on her friends Roz, Max and Frances to be her rock and guide her through life’s troubling decisions.

本片改编自同名小说。樱井萌（当真亚美 饰）从小体弱多病，无法上学，也没有朋友，每天独自度过时光。她一直有一个小小的梦想——在自己生日那天，与喜欢的人一起观赏据说能让恋人永远相守的六月满月“草莓月亮”。然而，15岁那年冬天，她被告知生命所剩无几。                                                                      　　从医院回家的路上，萌邂逅了命中注定的人，并下定决心进入高中就读。入学典礼当天，她在初次见面的情况下，向同班同学佐藤日向（斋藤润 饰）突然告白，人生第一次恋爱就此开始。终于到了共赏草莓月亮的那一天，但从那天起，萌突然从学校消失，日向再也无法联系上她。而萌离开的真相，以及13年后传来的秘密究竟是什么…