The War Game

source: The War Game

Moviecut—The War Game

The War Game

Just watched this for the first time, having heard and read much about it. It's still powerful stuff, and for 1966 this must have been particularly strong. The British Film Institute have just released this on DVD including an interesting documentary about the BBC's banning of the film, and a copy of Watkins' earlier film 'Diary of an unknown soldier'. Good stuff.

The War Game........ I saw this movie in a limited engagement in Toronto at an underground theater when it was first shown here. For the time the film was very " in your face " and I recall people coming from the small theater with shocked looks on their faces, one couple I recall the man was being sick at the curb, others seemed to have just blank stares on their faces. It was a very impacting movie, very much ahead of its time and no where could have Hollywood or any other film makers here or in the US could have come close to making. It was an very intense for the subject and it was the ending that did it to everyone there who saw it. For 46 minutes of black & white film it had impact that I have not seen since in any of the much vaunted films over the last 40 odd years or so. If you do get a chance to see it do so, and try to see it in the temper of the times that it was produced in..........Enjoy inquist4

Absolutely riveting and somewhat revolting. This is not a movie for your viewing amusement or pleasure. This is a very stark documentary put together by the BBC dramatizing the fictional outcome of a nuclear attack on a typical English community. This worst-case-scenario is very graphic and disturbing; and after over forty years since its origin, this docu-drama still holds some pertinence and re-awakens the sensibilities coming with a nuclear attack. The shock value is still there. THE WAR GAME is directed and written by the acclaimed Peter Watkins with Michael Aspel and Peter Graham as commentators. Forty-eight minutes you will not soon forget.

Made in 1965 for BBC television and subsequently banned as being too horrific to screen, (it was released to cinemas and won an Oscar in the Best Documentary category, although, of course, it isn't a documentary), Peter Watkins' masterpiece is just as effective today as it was forty years ago. What Watkins chose to do was to make a fictionalized film, (though using all the facts at hand), in the style of a documentary about Britain just before, during and after a nuclear attack and it all looks remarkably real. There are no central characters, no-one to identify with, nothing, in fact, to make us think that this is anything other than what it appears to be, namely a Public Information film on the aftermath of 'the Bomb'. The Cold War may have ended and warfare, in general, may have taken a different turn but this extraordinarily powerful, terrifying and ultimately moving film should, nevertheless, serve as a reminder of what could still lie ahead of us. Mandatory viewing.

If Peter Watkins The War Games had been broadcast as intended in 1965 it would had scared the hell out of people of Britain. The BBC delayed its broadcast until 1985. By that time the BBC scared the nation with the drama Threads. The War Game was released in the cinemas and won the Best Documentary Oscar, however this is not a documentary. This docu-drama imagines the effects of a nuclear strike in Britain. It is based on research of nuclear tests carried out in the USA, the impact of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombing campaigns and its aftermath in various German cities during World War 2. This is a grim film, it gets darker the more it goes on. Coldly showing the deaths from the aftermath of a nuclear strike but also showing a society that is breaking down. Even 50 years later this is a shockingly bleak film.

If you like horror films, you will absolutely love this film. It was made for BBC television, but deemed too horrendous to show. It was later shown in theaters and won an Oscar for best documentary film in 1966. You cannot tell that you are not watching real live news instead of a film. It shows not only the horror of nuclear war, but the fact that the government is not prepared in the least to cope with the evacuation and damage. It has some really horrible scenes of death, but the most terrifying aspect of the film is the naivety and total lack of realistic expectations. The aftermath is a testament to the stupidity of nuclear weapons. The film draws on the aftermath of Dresden and Hiroshima and Nagasaki for realism. One has to realize that this was 1965 before we reached the level of weapons we have today. This is a film that should be seen by everyone.

Perhaps I'm a complete air head but I had never heard of this film until I came across it at the Hack Green bunker in Cheshire a couple of years ago. Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker is a visitor attraction now, having ceased it's original function in 1966. It's a good day out. The whole place wreaks of nostalgia and has a dankness about it that draws you in to the mentality of the era. A little room is set aside for the repeated showing of The War Game. I stepped into this little room and watched it. The seats were no less uncomfortable than the film. I dare say I was overly affected by the atmosphere of the bunker but I have to say I was genuinely chilled to the bone on seeing this creaky old film for the first time. I recently got my own copy from BFI and viewed it in the comfort of my home. It still provided the same chill. I was entertained by "The Day After", interested by "Threads" but "The War Game" wins the message game for me.