When The Wind Blows - nuclear war animated movie

[Patrick Degan]

Here's something rather different: a little animated nuclear war drama from Britain. Where The Wind Blows (1988) depicts the impact of a nuclear attack on the UK from the perspective of an elderly rural Sussex couple, the Bloggs, who struggle to cope with the aftermath of the war and comprehend its meaning. I just happened to stumble on this while browsing YouTube. Here's the full cut of the movie:

Link provided since I can't seem to get embedding to work

[Bedlam]

I can't bear to watch the movie, the book made me cry so much as the characters reminded me of my grand parents. It's so sad that they die without ever really realising what is happening.

[Zixinus]

What a fantastic piece of animation. It was all light comedy in the first half hour, with only a snippet or two of foreshadowing. The couple here is also quite lovable: they are both a bit daft, but their antics and back-and-forth

Then the bomb hit. That couple of minutes had amazing amount of emotional depth. That they seemed to have used a real house (or a very life-like one, I am guessing) is also pretty amazing.

Then the aftermatch of it all. The couple still not quite understanding of the levity of what happened. And I'm still only at 40 minute mark.

EDIT: Oh God, they are drinking the radioactive rain-water.

[Col. Crackpot]

Sad... Being born in the 1970's i've always had an odd fascination with these sorts of movies... Testament,, The Day After, Threads, By Dawn's Early Light etc. How differentt life would have been. I'd have been dead living between a sizeable airport, a submarine plant and a navy base. I remember asking my father at the age of 8 or 9 (1983-ish) what we would do if nuclear war started and his reply was "we'd go outside and wait."

[fgalkin]

Probably the most depressing movie I've seen, and I've seen a lot of depressing movies. It's the format as the cartoon, as well as the utter naivite of the people that really gets to you.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Zixinus]

Probably the most depressing movie I've seen, and I've seen a lot of depressing movies. It's the format as the cartoon, as well as the utter naivite of the people that really gets to you.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

What's also much more crushing, is that they are simply aren't stupid. Remember the bit about them drinking rainwater? They boiled it as a safety precaution. They did not know, perhaps not even could know, that doing that did jack shit against the radioactive isotopes in the water.

But really, overall, there was simply nothing they could have done to survive. Even if they manage to save their bottled water, they'd inhale radioactive dust and air. The only way they could have survived if they had stuff we saw they didn't: such as gas masks to filter the air, something to filter the water or even just a functioning vehicle they could have used to find help.

[Patrick Degan]

It seemed that Mrs. Bloggs sort of had an inkling that they weren't going to survive. She is the one who suggests that they get in the paper sacks, lie down, and say a prayer —and remarks idly how she wouldn't want to be buried in the ground. I think Mr. Bloggs might have had an idea at the end that they were doomed as well but kept up the whole "stiff upper lip" attitude and constantly talked about the emergency services eventually reaching them so as to keep his dear wife calm and hopeful. Both of them weren't talking about the terrible truth they knew or at least dimly suspected, and both sought to comfort each other. It's the tenderness of the Bloggs that gets to you in this film, more than in most other nuclear doomsday movies.

[fgalkin]

Yes, it's the futility of it all that really gets you. They were doomed from the start and everyone but them knew it. That, and their boundless optimism in the face of certain death. After all, they built the shelter and followed the instructions, and the government wouldn't lie to them, so the authorities will come to save them any moment now....any moment now.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Patrick Degan]

The voices of the Bloggs were provided by Sir John Mills and Dame Peggy Ashcroft, and the original graphic novel was by Raymond Briggs, who was also the artist and writer of The Snowman.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Oh. My. GOD.

That is just...words don't do it justice. That has got to be the saddest thing I've ever seen...

[PeZook]

I haven't really appreciated the total despair that a nuclear war would bring, until I've seen a report that UK burn wards would've run out of space and supplies within HOURS and would simply be unable to treat even a tiny percentage of the burn victims they'd receive. I imagined hundreds of thousands of people with horrible burns camped around hospitals, just waiting to die, too weak to move or even lash out in rage.

They'd be powerless, their government would be powerless...even if they had the most noble, selfless leaders in the world, they'd still all die.

[Tolya]

You sure don't see that angle in Call of Duty games, or any games at all. The movie is heartbreaking and just watching the fragments almost made me cry. With all the problems in the world today, it sure beats the threat of nuclear annihilation.

[Zixinus]

I haven't really appreciated the total despair that a nuclear war would bring, until I've seen a report that UK burn wards would've run out of space and supplies within HOURS and would simply be unable to treat even a tiny percentage of the burn victims they'd receive. I imagined hundreds of thousands of people with horrible burns camped around hospitals, just waiting to die, too weak to move or even lash out in rage.

They'd be powerless, their government would be powerless...even if they had the most noble, selfless leaders in the world, they'd still all die.

On that note, Threads is up on Youtube as well. The first hour of the film will almost bore you to death, the second hour will haunt your nightmares.

I think it is one of the films that should be seen by everyone at least once. It is amazing just how unrestrained the creators were and I am amazed at how they managed to pull off so many scenes. I mean, everything looked so real in it, I can't imagine how much work they must have put into make-ups and such.

Note to mods: Please remove link if there are any issues. I cannot tell whether the video is legit or not.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Yeah, they reminded me of my own grandparents. Fucking heartbreaking. They were old, a little daft. Had no idea what the dangers were because they had no frame of reference but conventional bombing--which of course they could get through, because they already had. No idea what fallout was. The second he said "we can save it!" with the rainwater I thought "Oh...god...", and the reality is, they had no alternative. It was either that or they die from dehydration.

In a nuclear exchange, the blast survivors are NOT the lucky ones.

[Patrick Degan]

The first thing I thought of viewing that scene was of the Black Rain that fell on Hiroshima after the bombing, and what inevitably happened to the people who swallowed it.

[Sea Skimmer]

I haven't really appreciated the total despair that a nuclear war would bring, until I've seen a report that UK burn wards would've run out of space and supplies within HOURS and would simply be unable to treat even a tiny percentage of the burn victims they'd receive. I imagined hundreds of thousands of people with horrible burns camped around hospitals, just waiting to die, too weak to move or even lash out in rage.

Its worse then you think then, because hours very optimistically assumes any burn wards are left standing. Also since moderate levels of radiation depress the immune system so effectively, the resulting infections would be much worse then they would be normally even for someone who got good care by peacetime standards. The UK though actually got a lot further hardening facilities and stockpiling stuff then most nations did, but it was largely given up by the 1970s once nuclear war no longer seemed so certain to actually happen and old supplies started to need replacing.

They'd be powerless, their government would be powerless...even if they had the most noble, selfless leaders in the world, they'd still all die.

Government? UK civil defense planning actually assumed such total destruction that control of the country would have devolved to a series of regional commands, five or six as I recall. The government as it had been known would not even exist. It did have a bolt hole to flee into given a chance, the huge tunnel complex built into the Corsham Quarries as an aircraft factory in World War Two, but it presented almost no protection against even a weak nuclear attack and more or less existed a decoy, though it had some value in a conventional war as a communications and computer center. Certainly it was nothing like the (limited) protection provided by Raven Rock or Mount Weather. The Germans also managed to build a huge government bunker that could hardly withstand conventional let alone nuclear attacks in a couple abandon railway tunnels. Europeans like functionally useless bunkers I guess.

[PeZook]

You know, that cartoon is full of very interesting, euphemistic language.

"Inner core of refuge"

"Period of national emergency"

etc.

It almost sounds like these sorts of phrases were carefully selected to hide the sheer terror. "Period of national emergency" suggests something temporary and recoverable, for example.

[Stark]

Do you have any idea how naive you sound? Of course these phrases were specially chosen. Managing panic is the first part of managing an emergency, and decades of nuclear doom left plenty of time to think about it.

Even the cowardly Americans!

[PeZook]

Do you have any idea how naive you sound? Of course these phrases were specially chosen. Managing panic is the first part of managing an emergency, and decades of nuclear doom left plenty of time to think about it.

Even the cowardly Americans!

Dude, I know why it's done like that, I just found the language very...specifically neutral. It's interesting precisely because it's kind of forced into use by the need to manage panic and despair.

But it's also pretty tragic, because obviously rescuing a couple of retirees from their rural Sussex home wouldn't be any sort of priority for emergency services which the Bloggs nonetheless almost completely depended on for any sort of long-term survival. So for these two specifically all the measures and instructions and preparations sound really, really hollow.

I mean, even if they WERE found and rescued, you just know they'd be given contaminated food ad water while clean supplies would be reserved for the military and young people of breeding age.