少女日记1999

　　横跨30年的10宗灭门惨案，所有遇害家庭都有一个共通点：有一位14号生日的小女生。

警探本•卡森（Kiefer Sutherland 基弗•萨瑟兰 饰）因枪杀同事被迫从纽约警察局提前退休，他的婚姻也随之破裂。落魄的本暂住在妹妹安琪（Amy Smart 饰）的公寓里，终日借酒浇愁。一段时间沉沦过后，本重抖精神，找到了一份保安的工作。他所供职的五月花购物商场五年前曾被大火毁于一旦，令他倍感奇怪的是，在这座焦黑的建筑物中，那一面面镜子却格外明亮。　　数日后，本在商场的镜子上发现奇怪的手印，而次日亦在妹妹家的镜子上见到恐怖的景象。接下来的日子里，恐怖事件接连发生……

随着妍静突然宣布重返职场，                                                                      　　她们发现自己离家的时间明显增多。                                                                      　　之前一直疏远她心爱的钢琴的米娜，                                                                      　　开始回避家人。                                                                      　　之前一直回避运动的镇秀，突然每个假期都离家去锻炼。                                                                      　　随着秘密越积越多，沟通也变得支离破碎，                                                                      　　三人变得疏远却又亲近。                                                                      　　然后，有一天，一次偶然的相遇，                                                                      　　将妍静、米娜和镇秀的秘密串联了起来……                                                                      　　嘘！当你打开这扇秘密之门，                                                                      　　一个非常特别（？）的家庭故事就此展开！

　　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.