扳机

　　缇娜（安娜·哈金森 Anna Hutchison 饰）带着十二岁的女儿贝斯（特丽莎·贝特曼 Talitha Bateman 饰）于午夜走在回家的路上，遇见了一群小混混，小混混们强暴了缇娜，贝斯作为目击证人将施暴者们的面容牢牢记在了心底。在法庭上，贝斯当庭指认了凶手，然而，被告方找来了一位毫无道德底线并且巧舌如簧的律师，他们联手栽赃缇娜，颠倒是非黑白，而法官也只想息事宁人。　　约翰（尼古拉斯·凯奇 Nicolas Cage 饰）是一名从业多年的老警官，虽然表面风光，但实际上他正在遭遇人生的中年危机。缇娜的案件激发起了约翰内心里熄灭已久的正义感，他决定挺身而出帮助这对可怜的母女。

　　没有任何人气的鬼怪小说作家严冬自命不凡，虽然专写灵异题材，但是却从不相信世上有鬼。他的经纪人兼好友包劲希望他能尽快写出真正恐怖且吸引人的作品，为此和他打赌世上到底有没有鬼。两人来到乡下，在专门为他人做法事的三姐的庵堂住了下来。三姐的徒弟们活泼三八，独有沉默的阿乐不与众人为伍。阿乐自幼拥有天眼，能够看到另一个世界的众生，为了不惹麻烦上身而小心回避他们。另一方面，严冬在包劲和女孩们的帮助下终于见到了鬼，却险些吓破胆，关键时刻多亏阿乐相救。　　自此之后他们越来越熟，而见鬼的日子也越来越多，盘桓在人间的众生希望借助他们得到超度……

　　说来平平无奇，奇在竟煞是好看。娓娓道来自己过去一天的是新锐摄影师彼得胡渣，请他到香闺畅谈的是知名作家莲达罗森克兰兹。本打算将纽约艺术圈好友的生活日常结集成书，书出不成，抄本却奇迹留下，让埃拉萨克斯看得心神一动，在一室之内以灵巧多变的镜头摆位，重塑1974年那平凡却奇妙的一天。请来《欲流双行道》的宾韦沙念55页独白，三分型格三分忧郁再带三分初成名的忐忑。漫溢于16米厘的光影质感之间，是安迪华荷、苏珊桑塔格那一代人浸透于生活的艺术灵光。

　　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.