Post Brinkmanship

[eumelia]

A few years ago, I must of been in my early teens, I saw a movie on television which I've never seen since.
Mainly because I could never forget it.
The movie is When the Wind Blows.
The film horrified me.
I had nightmares for days, it was like when I went to the Planetarium when I was about seven or eight years old and was convinced the sun would expand and destroy all life on earth... today.

I've always been terrified by scenarios I know can, have and will happen eventually.
I suppose it's one of the reasons I'm a sci-fi/fantasy fan.

Someone has put up When the Wind Blows in eight parts on YouTube.
Here they are for posterity.

When the Wind Blows (playlist permalink)

I will most likely not watch this movie today, or even tomorrow. But I feel that as a piece of culture it's important for me to know where to find it again.
As I said, I've never really forgotten this movie and having found it again I don't think I'll be able to stop myself from sitting down and watching and being thrown back into my early teen pre-Buffy brain and bawling like a baby at the nightmarish reality that that couple is living through.

I'm finding the coincidence of finding this movie again, right after seeing Watchmen and interesting coincidence.
Story of Watchmen takes place during a fictional Cold War reality, brinkmanship is a reality and the Doomsday Clock is only a few minutes to midnight.
In both versions a calamity descends.
And we never really see the aftermath.
When the Wind Blows is that aftermath.
At least, that's what my coincident prone brain told me.

Comments

[p-friedmann.livejournal.com]

גם אני ראיתי אותו כילד, וגם בי אחזה חרדה נוראה בעקבותיו. לפני כמה שנים השגתי אותו, ואני חייב לומר: האימפקט שלו לא נחלש כשגדלים. זה סרט איום, שעושה דברים איומים לצופה (זה אומר שהוא טוב מאוד, כמובן). ויש מוסיקה של פינק פלויד, נדמה לי, או של בואי. מישהו. וגם היא מטרידה מאוד

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

בטוח יש שם את בואי, כי יש לו את השיר
when the wind blows
ממש לא יפתיע אותי אם גם מוסיקה של פינק פלויד מצויה בסרט.
אני גם זוכרת ששנים אח"כ ניסיתי להסביר לחברים מה זה הסרט הזה, אבל אף פעם לא זכרתי את השם שלו, כאמור, ראיתי את זה בטעות בטלויזיה והייתי לבד... כנראה עוד מקור חרדה.
רק במקרה כשהייתי באיזה אייקון כשהייתי בצבא ראיתי בדוכן של האוזן השלישית את בדיוידי של הסרט והרגשתי נחת עם הידיעה שלא דמיינתי את אותו אחה"צ שגרם לי לסיוטים.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

I grew up in the 80s when nuclear war was a strong possibility, and I still have nightmares about it. I read the comic that this movie came from as a kid; I still can't watch anything with an apocalypse in it, like BSG. There's a lot of novels from the 50s to the 80s with major nuclear war themes; unfortunately a lot of them were shelved in the Young Adults section at my library and I just kept on reading them as I ran out of books...

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

One good thing you can say about the Cold War, it was a great inspiration for art and literature.

[st-aurafina.livejournal.com]

I am another one warped by this comic - it terrified the living daylights out of me. I could never, ever watch the film. There are so many post-nuclear stories that we all had to read in the 80s - I suppose it came from the minds of people who were kids in the fifties, the first generation to grow up with the threat of nuclear warfare.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I can only imagine that the children of today will write about the War on Terror... which, when you think about, really is just a continuation of Cold War mentality, except the enemy is "within".

within this car a family is burning alive.

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

Heh, that cartoon is much fluffier then Threads or The War Game. *shudder* The War Game. Have you seen that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9v-tI7xQFo

It's trauma in the making. Yeah.

Re: within this car a family is burning alive.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I have.
I think there's something about a cartoon that enables one to accept the information without being traumatised as you say.

"The War Game" was a very realistic what-if thing, those are always disturbing, but it's also very for things that are realistic to lose their edge with exposure - you know, like the News, the film "The Thin Red Line", etc.

Animation brings a different level of horror, because it's dream like and what we imagine and ultimately our imagination is far more horrific than anything we can see through the lens of a camera.
Other than snuff, which I hope to never ever see.

Re: within this car a family is burning alive.

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

I wish I had of seen the cartoon when I was a kid, I think I was 10 years old when I saw The Day After, nightmares for years afterwards.

And Mum said a nuclear war was possible, I remember that when I asked for reassurance as a child. I think my generation is the last that grew up under that reality. I'm still half afraid of it.

That, and burning to death, the firestorms in Victoria really brought those memories back.

I may sound very calm with these words, but I'm shaking here a bit thinking about all these things. I'm very afraid of nuclear war.

Re: within this car a family is burning alive.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I can certainly relate to that fear.
I tend to talk about war and things of that nature very glibly, blase and stuff having been born where I was and living where I do (same place of course).
I mean, I grew up with missiles really falling on my head and people blowing themselves up as acts of war and resistance.
Brinkmanship is very remote in my mind and very sci-fi-ish to me, though I know it is a reality, hence being so terrified by reading and seeing post-apocalyptic dystopia.

Re: within this car a family is burning alive.

[cbr-paul.livejournal.com]

I think that animated media also tends to allow the viewer to let their guard down a little more than they would in a live action piece: "Grave of the Fireflies" is still the most powerful anti-war flim that I have ever seen, and not a single gunshot or bomb in sight!

[tempestbreaker.livejournal.com]

When I first scrolled down and saw the freeze frame on the youtube thingy...i thought it was Professor Bunsen from the muppets.

I'm curious about this movie though.

[tinceiri.livejournal.com]

I remember watching that. It's really scare because you don't know what's going on at that age, and it's so fascinating because of all the craziness.