[HEADING=1]
I must admit, I have always been afraid of the nuclear holocaust. I have always looked upon it with a certain grim idea that it is just around the corner. Yet, eventually I came to regard it with a certain amount of awe - after all, it was an almost perfect weapon. It could crush civilian populations quickly and very thoroughly, leaving nothing but perfect devastation in it's wake.
The film Threads is a pseudo-documentary that tries not to preach politics or picks sides, but merely tells a story of what might happen before, during and after a nuclear apocalypse and, in particular, a nuclear strike on Great Britain.
Of course, it is set during the most dangerous moments of the Cold War. Nuclear warheads are aimed at every strategic target in the book and everyone is feeling the tension, the fear and the knowledge that death may be just around the corner. If there's one aspect that the film portrays correctly, then it is the atmosphere preceding a nuclear war. It portrays human emotions in a realistic and convincing way, thus making the audience feel like they're a part of the horrific events, thus strengthening the message and the impact of further scenes.
The exploration is done superbly, in a way that I wish more films would adopt. Instead of focusing on specific, grandiose events, it adopts a much more focused, narrower spectrum that encompasses the population of a single town and several families. This, again, helps the film seem more plausible to the common viewer and makes the main characters feel more realistic and one can relate to them far more easily. This is how the film goes, showing scenes of life of these families, using news announcements, television broadcasts to set the backdrop of a nuclear war about to happen. Dispersed between these scenes are moments of photographs and explanations of the British way to deal with a nuclear strike. In addition to those, there are a number of scientific facts and simple explanations.
Perhaps most intriguing is the three pronged approach that the film takes - informative, emotional and retelling. It's first main objective is to retell the story of this alternate history event in an interesting and simple way, so that most people could understand it. The second is to create a deep, emotional impact that would be the greatest conductor of the films many messages, and finally to inform the public about everything that happens during a nuclear catastrophe - particularly about fallout and the blast zone with empirical data and explanations.
A big theme is also how interconnected our entire society really is and how one piece depends upon another to perform at full capacity or even at all. It shows that we have made such a civilization that requires every nation to be completely dependent on all others for survival and breaking this tangled web would bring about catastrophe.
There are two reasons why I greatly respect this film, quite possibly more than any other nuclear apocalypse film. And the first of those is that it doesn't mince words or diverts the topic to greener pastures and pleasant dreams. It gives you the cold, hard truth about the matter - you're probably going to die. All the people you knew are probably going to die. Therefore, it conveys the idea that in addition to being prepared for a nuclear conflict, we should also do our best to avoid it. Even then, the film is one of the bleakest and darkest that I've ever seen - it gives no false hope, no speck of sunshine and nothing to lean on for support. It doesn't lie.
The second one is that this film portrays everything as realistically as possible. I'm a bit of a realism fanatic when it comes to films and generally have tough time suspending disbelief, but this film made me feel truly vulnerable the first time I watched it and made me feel even more vulnerable the second time. That is the sign of a truly great film - that you can watch it time and time again and still feel the impact it is supposed to make.
It's worth mentioning the fantastic production values of the film. It looks and feels realistic, although, sometimes you can see the stock footage and even then, you choose to ignore it rather than take issue, because it fits in. The set design is amazing and perfectly sets the scenery, masterfully portraying rural areas of England.
The acting is really top-notch and not only does the clear English accent lend the film authenticity, but the facial expressions and acting abilities of those people that may have been taken of the screen really add a lot to the emotional significance of this cinematic masterpiece.
Emotional, realistic, hard to watch, shocking, dramatic - all labels that could be applied to this film. But this film is more than mere labels. It is a work of such careful planning and such precise, detailed and compelling storytelling that it might as well be one of the great epics of our time. It tells a story similar to the one in The Day After, that's true. But unlike that American film, coincidentally released at nearly the same time, Threads is here to make you think about the reality of a post-nuclear world, without any falsehoods, lies or optimism.
The Moirae
[/HEADING]I must admit, I have always been afraid of the nuclear holocaust. I have always looked upon it with a certain grim idea that it is just around the corner. Yet, eventually I came to regard it with a certain amount of awe - after all, it was an almost perfect weapon. It could crush civilian populations quickly and very thoroughly, leaving nothing but perfect devastation in it's wake.
The film Threads is a pseudo-documentary that tries not to preach politics or picks sides, but merely tells a story of what might happen before, during and after a nuclear apocalypse and, in particular, a nuclear strike on Great Britain.
Of course, it is set during the most dangerous moments of the Cold War. Nuclear warheads are aimed at every strategic target in the book and everyone is feeling the tension, the fear and the knowledge that death may be just around the corner. If there's one aspect that the film portrays correctly, then it is the atmosphere preceding a nuclear war. It portrays human emotions in a realistic and convincing way, thus making the audience feel like they're a part of the horrific events, thus strengthening the message and the impact of further scenes.
The exploration is done superbly, in a way that I wish more films would adopt. Instead of focusing on specific, grandiose events, it adopts a much more focused, narrower spectrum that encompasses the population of a single town and several families. This, again, helps the film seem more plausible to the common viewer and makes the main characters feel more realistic and one can relate to them far more easily. This is how the film goes, showing scenes of life of these families, using news announcements, television broadcasts to set the backdrop of a nuclear war about to happen. Dispersed between these scenes are moments of photographs and explanations of the British way to deal with a nuclear strike. In addition to those, there are a number of scientific facts and simple explanations.
Perhaps most intriguing is the three pronged approach that the film takes - informative, emotional and retelling. It's first main objective is to retell the story of this alternate history event in an interesting and simple way, so that most people could understand it. The second is to create a deep, emotional impact that would be the greatest conductor of the films many messages, and finally to inform the public about everything that happens during a nuclear catastrophe - particularly about fallout and the blast zone with empirical data and explanations.
A big theme is also how interconnected our entire society really is and how one piece depends upon another to perform at full capacity or even at all. It shows that we have made such a civilization that requires every nation to be completely dependent on all others for survival and breaking this tangled web would bring about catastrophe.
There are two reasons why I greatly respect this film, quite possibly more than any other nuclear apocalypse film. And the first of those is that it doesn't mince words or diverts the topic to greener pastures and pleasant dreams. It gives you the cold, hard truth about the matter - you're probably going to die. All the people you knew are probably going to die. Therefore, it conveys the idea that in addition to being prepared for a nuclear conflict, we should also do our best to avoid it. Even then, the film is one of the bleakest and darkest that I've ever seen - it gives no false hope, no speck of sunshine and nothing to lean on for support. It doesn't lie.
The second one is that this film portrays everything as realistically as possible. I'm a bit of a realism fanatic when it comes to films and generally have tough time suspending disbelief, but this film made me feel truly vulnerable the first time I watched it and made me feel even more vulnerable the second time. That is the sign of a truly great film - that you can watch it time and time again and still feel the impact it is supposed to make.
It's worth mentioning the fantastic production values of the film. It looks and feels realistic, although, sometimes you can see the stock footage and even then, you choose to ignore it rather than take issue, because it fits in. The set design is amazing and perfectly sets the scenery, masterfully portraying rural areas of England.
The acting is really top-notch and not only does the clear English accent lend the film authenticity, but the facial expressions and acting abilities of those people that may have been taken of the screen really add a lot to the emotional significance of this cinematic masterpiece.
Emotional, realistic, hard to watch, shocking, dramatic - all labels that could be applied to this film. But this film is more than mere labels. It is a work of such careful planning and such precise, detailed and compelling storytelling that it might as well be one of the great epics of our time. It tells a story similar to the one in The Day After, that's true. But unlike that American film, coincidentally released at nearly the same time, Threads is here to make you think about the reality of a post-nuclear world, without any falsehoods, lies or optimism.