征服爱情

库梅尔·南贾尼：夜间思绪

村在天堂边

在索马里沙漠的一个偏远村庄，一个小男孩和爸爸、姑姑一同生活。父亲靠临时工作支撑家用，姑姑因为婚姻危机无奈躲到此处。他们朴素的心愿因为混乱不安的社会环境变得遥不可及，但家人之间仍充满温情瞬间。索马里裔奥地利导演莫·哈拉韦的长片首作通过一个临时家庭的境遇来展现动荡时局对个人生活的吞噬。导演温柔看待三位主人公，他以精致的构图和色彩，在有条不紊的节奏下，安静有力地铺陈越发紧迫的生存之战。本片是首部入围2024年戛纳电影节的索马里题材影片，并一举入围一种关注单元和导演首作金摄影机奖两大单元。

等待方舟

　　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.

超狗任务

　　超人狗最初是一条在警队服役的普通小猎犬，因为执行任务时的一次严重失误，被革职。流落街头的小猎犬被捉到一个动物研究所，邪恶的西蒙（彼德•定克拉吉 饰）博士在那里对流浪狗进行试验，希望能创造出一条超人狗。　　小猎犬大闹实验室，阴差阳错成了超人狗，并逃了出去。研究所的一个保安在下班的时候遇见超人狗，并把它带回家，希望借此改善和儿子的关系。　　在家里，超人狗发现自己不但力量强大、速度惊人，而且还能说话和飞翔。在保安之子的鼓励下，超人狗决定用自己的力量服务社会，与此同时，邪恶的西蒙博士则在琢磨怎么夺回超人狗，还计划着一个阴险的阴谋……