When the Wind Blows next to see everyone into a blissful sleep?
Or perhaps, The Road?
To answer my earlier question, it's on iPlayer for 30 days
im intrigued. never watched it first time round so may give it a watch over the weekend.
It was a little late for me so I’ll try and watch it on streaming.
Probably worth reading this little beauty for maximum immersion of what it was like at the time.
Protect and survive
TBH I don’t remember being that phased at the time, I suppose you get used to it whilst living thru it.
We did have a good soundtrack to life then thou 🙂
Definitely grim, by today’s standards though it’s depressing for sure, but I can imagine in 1984 it would make pretty shocking viewing. My paranoia though did feed into the Middle East / Russia / US parallels of today, and together with the in-movie “government is ahead of the public behind the scenes “ narrative I did start to think, why is this stuff on TV right at this particular moment….
Watching it last night brought back Martin Amis's take:
Every morning, six days a week, I leave the house and drive a mile to the flat where I work. For seven or eight hours I am alone. Each time I hear a sudden whining in the air, or hear one of the more atrocious
impacts of city life, or play host to a certain kind of unwelcome thought, I can't help wondering how it might be. Suppose I survive. Suppose my eyes aren't pouring down my face, suppose I am untouched by
the hurricane of secondary missiles that all mortar, metal, and glass has abruptly become: suppose all this. I shall be obliged (and it's the last thing I'll feel like doing) to retrace that long mile home, through the
firestorm, the remains of the thousand-mile-an-hour winds, the warped atoms, the groveling dead.Then—God willing, if I still have the strength, and, of course, if they are still alive—I must find my wife and children and I must kill them.
Seen it as a young kid on first release, was more excited by it and it was all chat the next say about the explosions and searing heat. Seen it again a few years later when at high school when we were learning about nuclear bombs, the 80s was an odd time as there were many programmes about surviving a nuclear strike. The reality is your better off watching the strike from close up, at least it’ll be a swift death.
Guessing its not suitable for my 9 year old?
Absolutely not. Regularly features on Internet round ups of "most horrific non-horror film".
Watched again last night, for the first time since I watched it as a young teenager back in the 80's. I remembered a surprising amount, forgot that it's mostly vignettes rather than a film. Still impactful though. I remember being thankful that I lived (at the time) right next to an RAF base, and would be instantly vaporised. Nothing has changed my mind that that isn't still the very best outcome if anyone would be idiotic to turn the launch keys
This was a good book(let) that I had at the time (might still have, actually):
I even had an NBC suit I blagged off my mum's mate in the TA!
Is it a one off iPlayer screening or will it be on demand for a bit? I’d like to watch it but my evening shift yesterday snowballed into a 13 hour all nighter and I’m already nodding off ?
It is available for 30 days on iPlayer.
It's also on the Internet archive site.As is some great radio program from the Beeb.
The BBC should make this permanently available on iPlayer as a public service to remind us what will happen if we don’t manage Russia and Iran effectively.
Guessing its not suitable for my 9 year old?
Watch it yourself first, I would have let my eldest watch it at 9 but no so much my youngest.
why is this stuff on TV right at this particular moment….
Just to reassure you a little, I think it's on TV due to it being it's 40th anniversary year.
Never seen it before but know of it, watched til about 1130 then taped the rest to finish tonight.
Loved all the early 80's visuals .... A lady call Marjorie, Mothercare, a new escort Mkiii .... smoking !! lol .... Don't worry it's Armageddon out there, there are no fags left.
The Amis quote above strikes a chord... I was thinking of the couple behind the doors against the wall and him "caring" for his wife... it crossed my mind he should have topped her off??
Looking forward (weird) to watching the rest tonight.
then taped the rest to finish tonight.
Who are you, who are all these people in the thread (no pun intended) that tape TV shows?!!
😉
Looking forward to watching this (I think). I would have been 9 when it came out but I never saw it then and only learned about it many years later. Though I do remember going to see when the wind blows at the cinema.
Growing up in a basement flat in London I used to lie in bed wondering if the shockwave would go right over the top of us, while also hoping the cat wouldn't be in the garden when it happened. What a time to be a kid! 🙂
Like many above it had a traumatic effect on my as a 20 year old. Put less subtlety it scared the crap out of me!!
I suspect it will have dated somewhat in the intervening years. However that could work both ways. Could make it even more chilling.
Definitely one of the most important scary iconic memorable frightening upsetting (I could go on) bits of TV I’ve ever seen.
Who are you, who are all these people in the thread (no pun intended) that tape TV shows?!!
I'm sure it's just an expression for using a hard drive or whatever.
Still don't see the point I haven't had an aerial or sat dish connection for a few years now.
Just looking at a Furguson Videostar gives me flashbacks to the explosive pop-up when ejecting a tape.
I suspect it will have dated somewhat in the intervening years
I watched it for the first time last night and it didn't feel dated at all. They obviously had a very limited budget, so there are no dramatic wide shots and special effects. Everything is really tight and claustrophobic, but that, along with the 1980s TV quality video suits the documentary style of the film perfectly. The fact it leans more towards that documentary style rather than drama makes it more chilling, because you don't feel the normal safe distance of watching a fictional story being told. I think it is a masterpiece of writing and direction.
Absolute silence after the first few minutes until the finish (including my 14 year old). Apart from my wife, who indignantly pointed out during the final scene that a character born post apocalypse had fillings...
Absolute silence after the first few minutes until the finish (including my 14 year old)
That's interesting, I thought the relative lack of pace and background music would've had contemporary kids reaching for their phones in minutes.
Try him on this late 70s episode of a programme about the survivors of a global pandemic:
Absolutely sh£t me up as a 10 year old (you thought 80s parenting was hands off...) and I think it still stands up.
Just watching it now. Pretty grim.
I know things aren't currently nuclear, but I can't help feel for the poor buggers around the world getting bombed with 'conventional' weapons. Not something I'm sure nearly all of us can even comprehend living with.
Watched it last night. Its my first time seeing it.
Bloody
Hell
People telling you how unremittingly grim it is, doesn't really prepare you for how unremittingly grim it is.
Christ the ending...
I'm off to build a bunker in the garage. I'll be stocking it with enough Tramadol that everyone can go nighty night as we inevitably succumb to either radiation sickness, crippling illness or starvation.
But what happen when the bomb drops
Down
Watched it until the mushroom clouds last night. That was fifty minutes or so. Tense. "Why didn't you unplug the bloody aerial?!" Would that have helped? Guessing not.
Will watch the rest at the weekend.
I know things aren’t currently nuclear,
We aren't that far away worryingly, and the timeline of the film was a matter of weeks before conventional diplomacy turned into nuclear willy waving contest.
Definitely one of the most important scary iconic memorable frightening upsetting (I could go on) bits of TV I’ve ever seen.
You probably want to look out for Children of the Stones HTV 1976 that was pretty bad considering it was for kids 🙂
This is in a similar vein. Possibly even grimmer as it focuses on an entire country
Bit of light bed time reading
I thought it was a documentary about everyday life in Sheffield.
This is in a similar vein. Possibly even grimmer as it focuses on an entire country
Bit of light bed time reading
Read this recently too and it's clearly based on a lot of the same historical information that informed Threads. At points, she kind of trips over herself to cram all the facets she wants to examine into a single scenario, but they're all chillingly pertinent.
Particularly worrying were the "Mad King" dimensions associated with North Korea which may render traditional notions of MAD deterrence redundant.
Other nightmare fuel included the possibility of a single warhead attack on a nuclear power/waste storage facility; the inadequacy of Russian early warning systems (likely to wrongly interpret the number and trajectory of incoming missiles); and the effects of a satellite-mounted EMP weapon detonated in the ionosphere (touched on briefly in Threads).
Sleep well, kids.
I remember being thankful that I lived (at the time) right next to an RAF base, and would be instantly vaporised.
Vaguely remember it, or bits of it, from when I was 10. Was terrifying. I recorded it too to watch later. I've often thought in the event it all goes very wrong I'd make a dash up the road to RAF Boulmer...figured it's part of early warning network so must be on the 'first wave' shortlist...
Finished it off last night, it's really very good.
I didn't find it as harrowing as The Road, because I wasn't as emotional attached, due to its doc style. But I like the way it visualises the fact we'd bomb ourselves back to the dark ages. That hasn't really struck me before in other productions. In other films its always a post apocalyptic future ... which is a "future" non the less !?!
The scene I really liked was where she barters for food (no spoiler), it's done in amongst the rubble of the town but in front of a pristine billboard for Standard Life.... So have we insured that this will happen or that it will not ??
Watched yesterday for the first time, raw and thought provoking, surprisingly gripping and very convincing given its dated appearance.
I've never seen it. I have a friend who saw it when it was first broadcast and they were 3 and it affected them for life. I think I'll steer clear of it, I don't think I need a big reminder of how grim and bleak things could get.
I didn't find it as harrowing as I thought, maybe because it's old or maybe because nothing will ever out-harrow The Road for post-apocalyptic nastiness. And as noted above it's hard to buy into the 'it could happen here' thing when innocent people are getting bombed to pieces daily at the moment.
And I knew it were grim oop North but no leaves on the trees in May, even before the nuclear strike?? Tough year for those folks.
but no leaves on the trees in May, even before the nuclear strike??
You need to watch the interview with the director Mick Jackson. It's on iPlayer.
It was made on an absolute shoestring in a few weeks.
Just finished it. Harrowing.
However, at least they could get dental care years after (spot the filling).
Does it have the same impact in 2024?
It's worth considering context, the 1980s was the beginning of the end of the Cold War. The fear of nuclear war was very real.
The leader of the USSR for a time was Andropov who earned the nickname "the butcher of Budapest." Ronald Regan was the US President and as Billy Connolly said, "this man has his finger on the nuclear button. He's the same age as my grandfather and we can't trust him with the TV remote."
the inadequacy of Russian early warning systems (likely to wrongly interpret the number and trajectory of incoming missiles);
Yup. In 1983 - a year before Threads - there was a fault in the USSR's early warning system which claimed to have detected ICBMs inbound from the US. The bloke in charge at the time suspected that they were false alarms because he reasoned there should be more of them. Had he not done so the USSR's policy was immediate retaliatory strikes, the goal being "Mutually Assured Destruction."
TL;DR - We came this -> <- far away from World War III by accident a year before Threads aired. We were already traumatised to start with.
And of course, as well as all of this going on, we were getting informational videos like this in TV advert breaks:
