Tuesday, August 26, 2003
I just watched a film that took me back to a time I'd rather forget.In the early to mid 80s cold war tensions were still high and everyone lived with that nagging fear in the back of their minds. I was in my early teens and rather neurotic to say the least.
QED, a doccumentary describing in great detail the effects of a nuclear attack was shown on uk tv, followed by two movies... an american film 'The Day After', and the british doccumentary style drama 'Threads'.
It's hard to describe the effect these films had on me, though traumatised might be a good word to use. Looking back, I find myself rather angry that Threads was actually shown to us in a special lesson at school. I was 14, maybe 15... is it honestly a good idea to be showing kids of that age people being burned alive in a nuclear blast, and all the horrors that follow?
Already a neurotic child with a nervous disposition and emotional problems, watching this film in a school lesson was like saying to me "Okay kids... watch this, because this is what's going to happen to you."
I lived in real fear every day after watching that movie, probably untill around the time the Berlin Wall came down, and had nightmares of nuclear attack on a regular basis well into my mid twenties.
So this morning I watched Threads again for the first time in nearly 20 years. It's predictably dated, but its impact isn't lessened for it. It's not a film to watch for pleasure, and seeing it again, remembering the fear I lived in because of it and how it fundamentally damaged a large part of my younger years... I find I'm very relieved to be so unfucked up in my 30s and enjoying life to such a degree.
There are some aspects of the 80s I love, most notably the music... but watching that film and remembering the darker aspects of that decade, I wouldn't ever want to go back and relive it. Indeed, Y2K and onwards have so far proved to be the best years I've ever known, and I'm very glad to be here.
Labels: movies
Steve 8:14 AM [+]
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