Friday 11 March 2016

Film Review: Where the Wind Blows (1986)


Where the Wind Blows. 

Where the Wind Blows, directed by Jimmy T. Murakami, is a 1986 animation with added live-action/documented film scenes about a couple who live in the country. Hilda and Jim Boggs are a elderly couple who live in the remote countryside of England. It is here we start to see them go about their daily lives through the thick of a Impending nuclear attack. Hilda is the only one who has no faith in there actually being a impending strike, Jim on the other hand begins to panic and starts to construct a shelter for them. As the film progresses we see a comparison of events between what is happening between America and Russia with Germany and England from the second world war 40 years prior. The bomb unexpectedly creeps up on them and Jim is forced to break a boundary by getting angry with his wife and forcing them both into the shelter he has constructed. After the bomb strikes, the see that their house have been burnt, exploded and destroyed. What is seemly dark but yet comedic is that Hilda seems to only think about her house's presentation and keeping it clean, not so much about the dangers with venturing out into the irradiated house to clean up. This is only dark because they have no clue what the residual effects of radiation exposure could do them.

Hilda and Jim Boggs pre-radiation exposure. 
Hilda Boggs after radiation exposure. 
Jim Boggs after radiation exposure. 
Over the course of the next few days, Jim tries to increase their hops by saying that help and emergency services will be arriving shortly, just like they did back in the war times. However, this is where the story takes a really really really grim turn. You can feel the dread after the impact of the bomb, the concept that you just know no one else was alive. This really hit home, as it brought feelings of sadness as well as shock. As the story draws to a close we see Jim and Hilda fall prey to the obvious incursion of radiation sickness. Neither of them understand what is happening to them, Jim merely dismisses it to being stressed, aftershocks and just what to expect after a strike like that. The art style effectively displays their deterioration, the lack of fat in their check bones, the spots on their skin and the headaches. I have played Bethesda's every popular Fallout franchise, and the one thing I could think of was that they were going to rise and become ghouls. But that is just my gamer mind. But in all seriousness, they knew they were sick, even getting into those dirty paper bags was a even worse idea then stepping out of the shelter in the first place.

The instances where Jim was re-telling the impacts of the second world war and the added animations overlapping the present was really effective. It made the story come to life in his own living room. The added real-life accounts gave the film that added power to make the feelings towards the characters stronger. Over all the movie was very touching, sad and really didn't want to watch it if I be honest. However I did enjoy it.

Image URL list:
http://www.discdish.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/when_the_wind_blows_xl_01-film-a.jpg
https://media.outnow.ch/Movies/Bilder/1986/WhenTheWindBlows/dvd-film.fs/09.jpg
https://stevenrobertsdmublog.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/hilda-dying.png

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