禁锢之欲

　　一名科学家在实验中不小心沾到了一种具有快速成长特性的化学液体，不久，他就变成了半人半兽的水怪。这时，野心分子也想获得这种具有快速成长特性的化学液体的秘密公式，他们遂派员追杀持有科学家记事本的电子专家。后来他们发现了这名科学家的下落，终于在沼泽区这帮野心分子跟科学家变成的水怪展开了决斗。这是一部滑稽可笑的科幻动作片，水怪的化妆和服装都显得愚笨而不能入信，对白亦平淡乏味，整部影片露出了低成本制作的粗糙感

　　Upon arrival to Venus, cosmonauts find furious volcanoes and sundry prehistoric beasts in Klushantev's film, based on a novel by the Soviet sci-fi writer Aleksandr Kazantsev. Footage has been recycled in three Corman productions: Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, Queen of Blood, and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (the directorial debut of Peter Bogdanovich).　　83min

　　「沈黙のパレード」の4年前に起きた事件を描く「ガリレオ 禁断の魔術」。帝都大学の准教授である湯川のもとを刑事の草薙俊平と、部下の牧村朋佳が訪れる。殺害されたフリーライター・長岡修の部屋から、突然倉庫の壁に穴が開くという奇妙な動画ファイルが見つかったのだ。動画を観て珍しく興味を抱く湯川。「映像が撮影された場所を見せてくれ」と言う湯川のただならぬ様子を気にかけつつ、草薙は牧村とともに現場へ向かう。

　　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.