When the Wind Blows

The couple's descent into sickness and implied death is more effective than all the mushroom clouds, bombed-out buildings, and piles of bodies that the genre has given us before and since.

NOT the cartoon that you might expect. A highly mannered and decent but naive British couple attempt to deal with a nuclear attack. Quietly moving and tragic

"They didn't blow up the sun, did they?" - "Oh no dear, science is still in its infancy". Threads ('84) with its dramatized "what if" about people in and after a nukefest, was as informative as it was (very) horrific. When the Wind Blows rather credits the viewer with understanding the reprecautions already - hence the Bloggs' virtual cluelessness is used to great ironic, comical and then tragic effect. By some point it is overdone a bit, but generally a film both harrowing and hilarious.

At once an affirmation of life and a rebuke of the evil it's capable of. The naïveté of the couple is devastating in their blind faith towards the society they wrongly believe will protect them, and yet, their fortitude of will to do their best despite their circumstance represents the best of our condition. There's a sequence of the couple's - Jim and Hilda's - commitment, their quiet affirmation of living, that brought me to tears. The film is the very definition of Common Grace.

Jesus fuck, this movie just creeps up on you, like a dark, foreboding storm cloud on a summer afternoon. Not having read the source material, I thought I'd be witnessing this naive old couple foolishly react to some sort of mock government drill, rather than the actual scenario unfolding around them, a tragedy rendered all the more devastating through the sincere and honest depiction of its hopelessly oblivious characters. A sad little gem.

My middle school teacher thought this would be appropriate for her 7th grade class. Besides being the first blow to my innocence it was also my first experience with an "adult" animated feature. A sad, sad movie with a depressing message watch it with someone who's cheeriness gets on your nerves.

The characters in this British animated movie about living through a nuclear attack are just so unbelievable unknowledgeable about nuclear war to have any emotional impact on me. And while that ignorance is necessary for the movie to work as a satirical indictment of futile government instructions about surviving a nuclear attack, the dark humor never really worked either, because it clashes with the emotional impact the movie is trying to go for.

:(

Don't be fooled by the children's story-like animation: this is very dark and gloomy. Although, the couple's cluelessness does make for some brilliant moments of black humor.

Striking and quite horrifying. The couple is so naive and that moved me very much. Brr

The UK's counterpart to Grave of the Fireflies, except with an awesome title track by David Bowie, Roger Water's on-the-nose score, and old people

Powerful and effective.

Cold war era cartoon about a retired old couple living in rural England, and how they deal with the threat of the country being nuked. Kinda sad watching the old codgers in complete denial, just wasting away and dying waiting for help to come, but you can't imagine real people would be so naive as to just assume everything would go back to normal. Nice to see animation not drawn by a computer, and the music by David Bowie and Roger Waters is excellent.

With all the praise this gets as being bleak and moving, I have to say I was rather disappointed. There are some rather pointed and interesting criticisms of the superficial soothing advice governments give in crises and the pitch black humour has some excellent moments. I can't say I found the characters very endearing or believable, though, which took away any emotional impact from the film.

A very disturbing film, but I'm glad that I watched it.  

Bogen er skønnere...

A black as soot satire on the government given advice for surviving nuclear fallout. Sad though not as devastating as people claim - the characters being played for humour means that they don't feel very realistic and can get on your nerves a bit making it difficult to emotionally invest in the film and the main animation style, mixing stop-motion and hand drawn animation, doesn't always work and at times just kicks you straight out of the film. Bleak? Yes. But rarely much more.

While it makes a great case about the horrors of war and radiation poisoning, my word, this couple is painfully naive and unconcerned. The psychology doesn't feel believable and that ruins some of the effect.

Emotional. The slightly crude animation just adds to how delicate and helpless they are. Classic.

The first time I saw that movie I was just a little child and I mistook for another kid's comic... well, it was really quite disturbing, but on the other hand it was really good.

Redundant but effective. The no country for old men of war movies.

Perfect mixture of happiness and sadness. It reminds me of "La vita è bella" (R. Benigni), and somehow is curious the way these characters think about all those events happening, the way they change things just by comments. At first you will find them so natural, human, tender, than every little thing that goes wrong will really break you. One of the most interesting adult animated movies I've seen in a long time, and even better than some of the most common ones people use to talk about.

I'd forgotten about this, a tale about a staunch british couple stoically trtying to cope with a nuclear attack. Great animation, though unsurprisingly quite depressing

Great.

In denial from the moment they began playing in bomb shelters when they were young, it's sad, yet not surprising, that they meet the end they do. However, I suppose one could say they are the luckiest of the survivors. Ignorance of their coming fate allows them a few moments of bliss before David Bowie comes to get them.

Good Movie

Powerfull, sad stuff. Loved the mixing of cartoons with live-action footage, and with a soundtrack where David Bowie and Roger Waters join forces, it's a bona fide classic. I'm sure it's pretty famous in the UK, but I would never have heard of it if it wasn't referenced in the last Iron Maiden album!

A brutal bit of satire, though the subject deserves it.