‘Threads’. The Apocalyptic Silver Lining To Coronavirus You Didn’t Know You Needed To Watch.
A Film Review of the 1984 SciFi/Docudrama.
The year is 2020.
You’d be forgiven for associating current world events to depictions of the apocalypse.
Entire cities have been left barren. Global lockdown and quarantine mandates are in effect. Entire industries have ground to a halt while the economy experiences its worst recession since the Great Depression.
Add to that the over 1.5 million confirmed coronavirus cases from around world (at the time of this article) along with the over 90,000 total reported deaths as result and things certainly do start to feel a little bleak. Like ’28 days later’ bleak.
I felt similarly of course and like so many others, it’s gotten increasingly difficult to see the silver lining within such times.
So I woke up early one morning and did what any self-respecting cinephile would do. I poured myself a cup of coffee, turned to my laptop and went searching for a film I hadn’t seen yet.
APOCALYPSE NOW
As much as I adore Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 masterpiece of the same name, this has nothing at all to do with that film and everything to do with the latest curated special currently available on MUBI, showcasing a collection of ready-to-stream post-apocalyptic classics.
From cerebral dramas like Geoff Murphy’s ‘The Quiet Earth’ (1985) to Ubaldo Ragona & Sidney Salkow’s, ‘The Last Man On Earth’ (1964) (An adaption of Richard Matheson’s classic 1954 novel, “I Am Legend”); There’s much to be seen that may lead one to consider that as bad as things currently seem, they could be a whole lot worse.
No film encapsulates this ideology best in my opinion than Mick Jackson’s 1984 Sci-Fi/Docudrama, ‘Threads’.
Set at the end of the Cold War, Threads tells the parallel story of a young British couple in the working-class city of Sheffield preparing for their wedding day as geo-political tensions escalate in what ultimately leads to global nuclear war — leaving millions dead.
Born out of an era of paranoia, this shocking docudrama vividly encompass the effects of nuclear warfare in horrifying detail while displaying the ever-present threats of unchecked political escalation during a period in the early 1980s when tension between the US and USSR reached heights hadn’t seen or felt since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
THE SILVER LINING
Now I fully understand that during such troubling times, one’s instincts are more likely to guide them toward light hearted Hollywood fare, say hosting that Harry Potter marathon for the third time in as many weeks (guilty as charged).
Then again, it doesn’t hurt to explore a film like Threads if only to walk out having witnessed the potential for true calamity at a global level. Because no matter how somber the depicted events in the film may have been, I found myself in a curious state of gratitude when the end credits began to roll.
Perhaps this was always the intention of late English author, Barry Hines when he penned the original screenplay in 1983. Or the intentions of BBC executives when they aired the film live on television a year later in what would come to be known as “the night the country didn’t sleep”.
Which is to say that a film like Threads serves as a cautionary tale through effective narrative storytelling. A fine example of how we, as a society can continue to learn and grow with the aid of cinema to guide us.
FILM FOR THOUGHT
So the next time you feel particularly down about the state of the world try turning to a film or genre that will truly have you looking on the bright side.
