 |  | War Game / Culloden 40+ years on |  |
I first saw these "documentaries" 40+ years ago and was impressed by their power and the logic of their messages. Seeing the programmes now is to lament the demise of powerful, committed and issue dominated documentary film making appearing on our TV screens. The War Game & Culloden haven't lost their ability to shock and stimulate debate.
Culloden, with its Vietnam war sub-text, carries, now, a message about decisions to declare war in Iraq while the War Game reminds us that policies of MAD & WMD are based on faulty logic.
This DVD is worth many viewings.
May 13, 2007| | | More effective than even "Threads" in some ways | |
"The War Game" is a surprisingly effective documentary, especially for the time that it was released. I felt that it was actually more haunting than "Threads", due to its colder atmosphere of hard facts and ebony and ivory images of charred bodies and demolished edifices. I often found "Threads" to actually be somewhat of a disappointment, especially with the initial attack scenes and cinematography that REALLY looks dated--especially for a movie that was made in--1984?!?! (Looking more like it was made in the early 70's in many spots). "The War Game", I felt, did a better job at hitting you with both fists--especially without any element of a "standard British kitchen sink drama" that "Threads" contained. Don't get me wrong, I still feel "Threads" is a good film, but one that could have been better, especially in light of how brutally honest "The War Game" was with its theme. Overall, I will always feel that when it comes to nuke films, "The Day After", does it best, due to its extremely chilling atmosphere and convincing performances. Also, contrary to what people have said, "The Day After" is NOT a soap opera with nukes, nor is it "Mister Roger's Neighborhood" as some reviewers of "Threads" have mentioned, but a HIGHLY effective thriller and a bona fide wake-up call. In conclusion, for me "The Day After" is the best, but second in line is "The War Game" with its bona fide chilling effectiveness. Definitely worth a viewing.
March 2, 2007| | | a pair of lost masterpieces | |
a double bill of films made for bbc-tv, i had seen both of these some thirty years back and never got over them. the earlier of them, "culloden" is a recreation of the events leading up to and following the 1746 battle that spelled the final end of scotlands days as a seperate country from england. adapted from the classic book by john prebble (incidentally, the rabbits favorite book), the film is a brilliant reflection on the conflicts among the idiotic bonnie prince charlie and his advisors, the ruthless english army, and the average scottish soldieer caught in the crossfire. filmed on a minimal budget (they had ONE cannon!), the battle scenes are so creative that you will believe youre part of it. this was the old walter cronkite "you are there" concept taken to the heights of art. now as to "the war game" -- well, once watkins had a major surprise hit on his hands with "culloden", he got to make "war games". akin to the similar path of patrick mcgoohan a few years later, who followed up the overwhelming success of "secret agent" with the artistically brilliant but controversial "the prisoner", watkins shot his wad with "WG", and never recovered. this fantasy about an english town in the days leading up to and following a nuclear attack is far more frightening than any of the myriad of other films which have used the same conceit. its matter-of-factness and use of ordinary people in lieu of actors works in watkins's hands in a manner that would have been artsy in the hands of another director. the finished product proved so controversial that the bbc declined to air it, and the movie was ultimately released in theaters, where ironically it won an oscar as best documentary. as i said previously, i saw both films on television in the 70s -- back when pbs still carried out its mandate to air quality television, rather than wayne dyer infomercials or doo-wop retrospectives. i cant more heartily recommend a dvd to watch than this.
December 5, 2006 | | Too intense in its own time for tv. | |
Remember that in 1965 we were in an intense cold war with the Soviet Union. It seems quaint now but is shot as a news story with immediancy to it. The documentary feel gives it life. We lived with the possibility of nuclear annilation always in the back of our collective minds. This film gives short shrift to Her Majesty's government's lack of preparation or the ignorance of the people affected by a nuclear attack on Britain. England is a small country & one wonders how indeed we would react in the U.S. to a nuclear attack with all our wide open spaces & places to escape. This movie gives the Soviets the benefit of moral relativism. Maybe U.S. foreign policy is responsible for this attack. It was totally devoid of references to God by the victims which is unrealistic but still refreshing. It's documentary feel made it seem like it could happen this way. The interviews with victims & government representative was effective & I suspect much more so 42 years ago.
October 27, 2006The War Game is one of the best films about Nuclear War.I first saw a snippet of this on the documentary Cold War and own the VHS copy. In general, these types of stories typically have 3 basic parts: pre-attack, the attack and post attack. Of the movies made in this genre, The War Game is the strongest in dramatizing all 3 parts. What helps the War Game along is that we do not get attached to any one character (my version is only 50 minutes long) like you do in the rest of the movies in this genre. When you attempt to follow the fate of one character or a group of people, you can lose the larger societal implications of nuclear war effects.
Some contrasts: First, there are 2 other major movies that are part of this genre called Threads and The Day After. Threads was a British movie. The Day After was its American counterpart. Both are decent stories but I would give Threads some advantage here.
1) Threads does the best job with showing pre-attack and attack conditions starting from the basic bliss of most people to the terrifying attack.
2) The movie the Day After shows a good deal of the pre-attack and post attack conditions but it gets carried away with the attack situation. Its characters are very shallow and detract from an otherwise well-told story.
One of The War Game's flaws is its obvious scoffs at religion. Many of the quotes seem to suggest that American ministers are backward and stupid for making suggestions like not giving shelter space to the passing stranger. What a modern viewer may not understand is how close the US and the USSR came to nuclear annihilation during this time frame and how practical this advice really was.
The War Game's other obvious flaw is its creating moral relativism with the Soviets. The movie portrays the fact that the US and its NATO allies may have been the first to use nuclear weapons in a battle over the Fulda Gap in Germany (a likely hotspot). What the story does not explain is how the Soviets had such a large and menacing conventional presence in Eastern Europe (and the Western Europe's inability or lack of desire to take on its own defense) caused this to become part of our policy. The War Game also fails to explain how the Soviet sub fleet went from being a coastal defence force to an offensive force in rapid order with reactors and weapon systems extremely prone to accident (as evidenced by the greater number of subs lost in the Soviet fleet than in the American fleet). These factors did a great deal to de-stabilize Western Europe for some time.
October 3, 2006More reviews at Amazon.com ...
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