(O-bi, O-ba - Koniec Cywilizacji) 
Directed by Piotr Szulkin 
88 minutes
In Polish with English subtitles

This is a Polish post-apocalypse sci-fi gem featuring a wild storyline and incredible set designs. In the 1980s director Piotr Szulkin made a series of mind-blowing dystopian movies that reflected the social situation in his home country. The films were delirious, imaginative and Fantastique. He was knocking out a movie every two years in the 70s and 80s, but Ironically enough, after the fall of communism he was no longer able to get financing for his projects. So under capitalism for the next 25 years he was only able to make one feature film, in 2003. The fate of Szulkin is similar to what many Soviet directors faced after 1990, especially the rebellious animation filmmakers that flourished under communism, but were silenced under the so-called free market.

Shot almost totally in vivid bluish-green-grayish hues, this flick stars Krzysztof Kieslowski regular Jerzy Stuhr as our protagonist called 'Soft', a guy living in a fall-out shelter buried deep in a mountain with about a thousand others. It is one year after the end of a nuclear war, and they are hibernating from the brutal nuclear winter and deadly radiation outside. A darkly surreal world is conjured up... of books being churned into bread for the starving, tightrope walkers practicing for their escape, women frozen in fish tanks that a madman believes can be thawed out again once liberation comes. 

The film is absurdist with outrageously imaginative set designs and costumes, and was made at the tail-end of the communist era in Poland. During the late 70s and early-mid 80s in Poland science-fiction was a way to bend the rules and disguise subversive messages. This flick was meant to reflect Poland at the time it was made, and in that context it explores themes of faith and mass delusion. This Polish cult classic is the third installment of Piotr Szulkin's science-fiction tetralogy, and is generally considered to be the best.

An intensely creative flick about living in a claustrophobic dystopian world, with philosophical reflections about the fate of civilization.