For those of you who don’t like subtitles, bugger off. For the rest of you that enjoy enriching your entertainment choices with dashes of culture, read on. This week we take a look at one of Poland’s best sci-fi exports from director Piotr Szulkin entitled O-Bi, O-Ba, The End of Civilization (1985).
The Basics
The setup is familiar. A nuclear holocaust wipes out most of humanity and those that remain are left to survive the harsh aftermath. The brunt of the plot is set underground and focuses on the exploits of the survivors as they await a mysterious vessel known as ‘the Ark’ to come and rescue them. Meanwhile on the outside a ravaging nuclear winter ensues.
The Review
You’ve never heard of this movie, but it’s not because it sucks. It doesn’t, in fact it’s very good. It’s meager budget constraints and slight 80′s feel aside, O-Bi, O-Ba is laden with dark humor and political/religious symbolism that is both slyly subtle and playfully overt at times. The survivors are portrayed as a ragtag group of malnourished and grumpy lot and each part is well acted and believable. The look of the film is appropriately bleak and unsettling thanks to the predominantly blue palette employed by Szulkin. Definitely an oft-overlooked gem and worth a watch in addition to other works by the same director. A box set of some of his best movies will soon get an English subtitled DVD release so be sure to go out and buy it when it’s released.
The Trailer (excerpt from film)
Rated P for Pierogi
