![Threads [DVD]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51W4MH0YT0L.__AC_SX300_SY300_QL70_ML2_.jpg)
I imagine that if you have got to this particular product review of `Threads', you will already have read countless five-star reviews of this film; and rightly so. The film is indeed truly frightening, disturbing, affecting and as many other reviewers have stated, life-changing.
This portrayal of a possible nuclear war, the impact, the aftermath and the sheer devastating consequences may not be what would actually come to pass; but the plausibility and the all too believable sequence of events within the film is what really affected me on first viewing (2008), and equally so today (2012), as I am sure it has affected everyone else who has seen it. This film is one of the rare occasions where entertainment - whether literature or cinema - transcends being a mere story, and becomes something more; in this case, it takes the seed of fear that is a possibility of nuclear war, and in two hours grows that seed to grim completion. By the time the final shocking scene passes that heralds the end of the film, the viewer no longer considers nuclear war as something they have never truly thought or worried about, but instead as an event that they would never, ever want to imagine occurring in their worst nightmares.
There are several incredible things that 'Threads' achieves, aside of course from terrifying the viewer into despair. One of the most effective plot dynamics of 'Threads' is that this tale of nuclear apocalypse takes place not in London or New York, but in none other than Sheffield - a city in the North of the UK, which as a region is normally reserved for caricature soap operas or light-hearted homely tea-time family fillers. As many other commentators have stated, there are no overblown Hollywood production values here - the grittiness of life in a Northern community adds to the realism. So accurately in fact, that most of us can associate with the everyday lifestyle of the protagonists in the story, and indeed imagine behaving and responding just as they do within subsequent events.
I wasn't born during the real scare of the Cold War in the 1980s; goodness knows how even more shocking this film must have been to those who were living in those uncertain times. The film seamlessly intertwines the logistical, scientific and historical aspects of the Cold War backdrop. The characters in the film follow real advice given in that era during the nuclear attack, in the form of the 'Protect and Survive' information bulletins. These televised broadcasts were themselves fearful viewing; even more so in the context of this story. I can only imagine how frightened some viewers must have been seeing this level of detail in 1984.
Once the attack hits, the film gives a brutal and rapid depiction of a society completely breaking down, with no immediate or even long-term hope of the situation improving. Contingencies and plans for allocating power of central to local government in such circumstances fail abysmally; emergency services are rendered ineffective, and the barbaric way of life - effectively a human devolution - depicted after the threads of society are torn apart are a million miles away from the beginning in rural Sheffield. Every consequence and impact of such an horrific incident has been thought out, and this is evident from the initial panic before the incident, with momentum gathering pace relentlessly up to and beyond the bomb being dropped.
This film remains one of the starkest depictions of war ever created. For all but the most oblivious, a small part of your thinking will change forever after watching this film - so be prepared.
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