莱昂·涅姆奇克

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.

去年過世的波蘭導演耶吉‧卡瓦萊洛威茲，是「Polish Film School運動」中的代表人物之一。其作品擅長以影像呈現細膩的細節，累積給予觀者強烈的震撼力。議題圍繞個人在社會備受政治或戰爭壓迫下，人性的掙扎與道德的選擇。這些深具豐富意涵的創作文本，也讓他的作品深受影壇重視。1951年拍攝首部劇情長片《The Village Mill》，隨後完成《Shadow》(1956) ，以及本片《夜車》，這些影片都被視為相當具時代代表性的波蘭電影。卡瓦萊洛威茲亦曾主掌知名的KADR 製作部門，安德烈華依達、塔都茲考威克(Tadeusz Konwicki) 和尤利斯馬休斯基(Juliusz Machulski)都曾在其製作部門工作。他最為人所熟知的影片莫過於1961年的《修女約安娜》，以及1966年改編自Bolesław Prus的歷史小說《Pharaoh》，本片亦入圍了1967的奧斯卡最佳外語片。　　《夜車》敘述一對男女Jerzy和Marta意外地在前往波羅地海邊Hel的夜車上共處一室。一表人才的Jerzy狀似緊張，看來像是在逃避追趕，Marta剛開始也沉默不言，慢慢的兩人才成為朋友。在車上還有愛慕著Marta的男孩Staszek，以及擁有豔光四射的年輕太太的老律師。當火車停靠在一個小站裡，警方上車開始搜索畏罪潛逃的殺人犯時，流言開始四起，都將警方要緝捕的對象，指向這個車廂中的Jerzy和Marta…。　　不同於當時深受義大利新寫實主義影響的「Polish Film School運動」作品，《夜車》瀰漫著希區考克式的懸疑詭譎氣氛。全片的劇情推展在火車內進行，封閉的車廂成為卡瓦萊洛威茲最好的發展空間。火車上乘客間彼此的猜忌與不信任，可說是當時波蘭共產社會的最佳寫照，也是一部波蘭影史重要的傑作。