枕边禁书

2013年，一名离60岁还有几个月的澳大利亚男子决定走圣地亚哥之路——一条横跨西班牙山顶的800公里朝圣之路。他没有宗教信仰，也完全不知道为什么他如此强烈地被迫走这条痛苦的路。但他是被迫的。他完成了步行，与“三重疼痛”作斗争——他后来发现膝盖缺乏任何有意义的软骨，一看到水泡就会让一个成年人哭泣，胫骨酸痛感觉就像他的下肢被一个疯狂的巨魔挥舞的山斧劈开了。当他到达圣地亚哥德孔波斯特拉雄伟的大教堂卡米诺的尽头时，他期待着一个顿悟——一个他每天都在问自己的问题的答案：我为什么要这样做？但没有人回答。所以当他回到家时，他写了一本书，希望答案能在他的涂鸦中显现出来。结果就是《路，我的路》，这是一本幽默而自嘲的书，许多人认为这是有史以来关于走过卡米诺的最好的回忆录。这本书现在已经拍成了一部电影，它非同寻常地描述了一个男人在人生的关键时刻，寻找意义，发现自己正在经历一场深刻的根本性转变，以至于他现在将自己的生活分为“卡米诺之前”和“卡米诺之后”。这是一个男人特有的故事，但对任何寻求生命更大意义的人都有吸引力。

　　傳說龍鳳雙劍合璧，能有無比神力。魔鬼黨首領笑鐵面覬覦桂王手中鳳劍寶劍，桂國陷入危機。諸葛四郎受託挺身而出，竟遭受真平的復仇挑釁，諸葛四郎腹背受敵。困境中英雄勇敢集結，和魔鬼黨展開搶奪寶劍大戰。諸葛四郎與魔鬼黨，到底誰會搶到那支寶劍？※本片可切換國語、台語發音，另有客語發音版

　　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.