The American film, "The Day After," fails shamefully in comparison to "Threads." The sentimentality that concludes "The Day After" is typical of American commercial television. This magnificent British film has no sops for the sentimental.
It achieves its effect largely by the use of realistic, horrifying, unsparing detail. We see the protagonist's parents in their basement. The wife has died. The husband has, as advised by a radio broadcast, wrapped her corpse in plastic bags; he holds her shrouded body, weeping. Later, when their daughter comes home, she opens the door to the cellar and is powerfully repulsed by the stench and the buzzing of flies, massing in the cellar.
It would be well for everyone all over the world to see this film now, since we again have leaders whose ignorance has tempted them to consider the idea that making nuclear weapons somehow suitable for use is wise, or even possible. It is neither. We cannot allow it to happen.
One wishes that something as sternly cautionary as this frankly realistic film could be made about the future we face under climate change. Indeed, climate change could very well lead to nuclear war, as an act of desperation by some nation or group of nations in the face of economic ruin or as a response to an invasion of climate refugees. It would be entirely insane, of course -- but, look at the madmen running so many nations in the world, including the US, right at this moment: Bush, above all; and Amahdinijad; and the presidents, prime ministers, or dictators of Isreal, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Burma, Sudan, or Venezuala -- every one of them either wretched ignoramuses, loose cannons, madmen, or all of the above.
It achieves its effect largely by the use of realistic, horrifying, unsparing detail. We see the protagonist's parents in their basement. The wife has died. The husband has, as advised by a radio broadcast, wrapped her corpse in plastic bags; he holds her shrouded body, weeping. Later, when their daughter comes home, she opens the door to the cellar and is powerfully repulsed by the stench and the buzzing of flies, massing in the cellar.
It would be well for everyone all over the world to see this film now, since we again have leaders whose ignorance has tempted them to consider the idea that making nuclear weapons somehow suitable for use is wise, or even possible. It is neither. We cannot allow it to happen.
One wishes that something as sternly cautionary as this frankly realistic film could be made about the future we face under climate change. Indeed, climate change could very well lead to nuclear war, as an act of desperation by some nation or group of nations in the face of economic ruin or as a response to an invasion of climate refugees. It would be entirely insane, of course -- but, look at the madmen running so many nations in the world, including the US, right at this moment: Bush, above all; and Amahdinijad; and the presidents, prime ministers, or dictators of Isreal, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Burma, Sudan, or Venezuala -- every one of them either wretched ignoramuses, loose cannons, madmen, or all of the above.
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