Threads
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Day zero |
| Original title | Threads |
| Country of production | Great Britain |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1984 |
| length | 110 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Mick Jackson |
| script | Barry Hines |
| production |
Mick Jackson Graham Massey John Purdie Peter Wolfes |
| camera |
Andrew Dunn Paul Morris |
| cut |
Donna Bickerstaff Jim Latham |
| occupation | |
| |
Threads is a television film by Mick Jackson from the year 1984 , which the BBC was filmed. It shows a nuclear attack on Great Britain and the consequences of nuclear war in general. The film was broadcast in German under the title "Tag Null".
Story of the movie
The film tries to show how a great catastrophe - here nuclear war - destroys the sensitive threads that hold a modern society together.
The northern English city of Sheffield serves as the setting, with a young couple in focus, Ruth Beckett (played by Karen Meagher) and Jimmy Kemp (Reece Dinsdale), and their families. The (fictional) plot begins in March 1983 with an invasion of the Soviet Union in Iran . This quickly leads to a serious crisis between the Soviet Union and the United States , which are calling for the Soviet forces to withdraw.
Ruth is pregnant at the beginning of May and tells Jimmy, who then proposes to her. At the same time, the crisis worsened when it became known that a US Navy ship had been sunk in the Persian Gulf . In return, a ship in the Soviet fleet is attacked.
The US President sends troops to Iran; the Mayor of Sheffield is instructed to convene his crisis team. The first hamster purchases are made in the supermarkets. The RAF Finningley Air Force Base , 17 km from Sheffield, is in an alarm state (shown in the film via the BIKINI state ).
On May 21, the United States presented the Soviet Union with an ultimatum to leave Iran. In England people demonstrate against the war. The British government takes control of British Airways and the oil platforms in the North Sea are secured by the Royal Navy .
The ultimatum expires on May 22nd at 12 noon. B-52 bombers attack the Soviet base near Mashhad . The Soviets deploy a nuclear defense missile for defense . The USA responded with a nuclear strike on the Soviet base. The exchange of blows is over for the time being. An emergency law is passed in the UK Parliament . Riots break out across the country. Many try to flee to the countryside.
A US Navy aircraft carrier was sunk in the Arabian Gulf on May 24th . The US government then imposed a sea blockade on Cuba . There are miles of traffic jams on British motorways. Petrol stations are closed. Many patients with less urgent operations are being brought out of the hospitals. " Subversive elements " are arrested as a precaution. Private telephone connections are blocked. However, due to a news blackout, nobody knows about the nuclear strikes in Iran.
On May 25, scientists confirmed the two atomic explosions . The unions are threatening a general strike . Works of art as well as fire engines are brought to safe places. The Mayor of Sheffield and his crisis team go to a bunker below the town hall. The population is informed via television and radio about the protective measures to be taken. Ruth breaks down in tears at the serious political situation.
Finally, on the morning of May 26th, there was a nuclear exchange . At 8:30 a.m., we learn, it is 3:30 a.m. in Washington, DC , at which time the US President and his advisors should be in bed. The NATO now would only delay responding to an attack.
Ruth does not feel well and stays in her parents' house, who live just outside of Sheffield. Jimmy is already at work in a carpenter's shop somewhere out of town.
At 8:32 a.m. the red alert is triggered. The mayor and his staff switch to emergency power and prepare for the nuclear attack in their bunker. The sirens wail over Sheffield . There is panic in the streets. Jimmy and his colleagues, also surprised, try to take cover somewhere.
The first rocket exploded at 8:35 AM on the North Sea . The electromagnetic effect will shut down the entire power grid in Great Britain and Northwest Europe.
The first wave of attacks took place at 8:37 a.m., directed against NATO military targets . The RAF Finningley air base is destroyed by a ground explosion. Sheffield remains untouched for the time being; however, the mushroom cloud is clearly visible throughout the city. There is indescribable panic on the streets. Jimmy jumps into his car, hoping to escape. Nationwide, 2.5 to 9 million people die in this first attack wave with 80 megatons (TNT equivalent) .
A little later the first warhead explodes over Sheffield. In the hypocenter of the explosion, all life is extinguished, the detonation reaches temperatures between 60 and 100 million degrees Celsius inside. Buildings near the point of impact of the bombs are razed to the ground by the detonation waves, organic material evaporates in seconds. Buildings further away are badly damaged. People flee screaming, burn alive or die instantly. Glass melts due to the heat generated at 5,000–7,000 degrees Celsius. Shortly afterwards, a second warhead hits the city.
210 megatons will be fired on Great Britain, a total of 3,000 Mt between east and west . Up to two thirds of all residential buildings are affected by the impending conflagration. Almost all window panes in the entire country were smashed by the pressure waves , and many roofs are covered. As a result, many people are exposed to the fallout , which falls on the city an hour and a half after the explosions.
Ruth and her parents, who are holed up in the basement, survived the attack relatively unscathed. Ruth's sick grandmother, who had to leave the hospital as a result of the protective measures, dies very soon. When Ruth's parents bring the body into an adjoining room, Ruth sets off for town. She can hardly understand the extent of the destruction: the streets are lined with rubble, corpses lie everywhere, the few survivors have mentally stepped away. Her parents are murdered a little later by looters.
The viewer learns nothing about Jimmy's fate; Ruth assumes that he was killed in the atomic explosion. Jimmy's parents died of radiation sickness a few days after the explosions , as they came into heavy contact with the fallout and the mother was also badly burned. Jimmy's brother and sister also died in the attacks on Sheffield. The town hall bunker, in which the Mayor of Sheffield and his adviser are staying, is buried under a meter-high layer of rubble. Only weeks later do the rescue forces manage to get to them - all of them are of course already suffocated.
A week and a half after the attacks, nuclear winter sets in . 100 million tons of smoke and 500 million tons of dust have been released into the earth's atmosphere ; this tremendous amount blocks most of the sunlight. It is dark and cold, the temperatures drop by up to 25 degrees.
After all of the main actors except Ruth have died, a fixed framework is replaced by various insights into everyday life after a nuclear war: the hospitals are overwhelmed for lack of material, the police can only restore order by force of arms. There is no fresh water or electricity. Food is scarce. Epidemics are rampant.
Survivors are being asked to help rebuild, but many are weakened. The death toll in Britain is 10 to 20 million three weeks after the attack, and between 17 and 38 million after four months. Most of the bodies decompose without being buried due to a lack of labor.
Internment camps are being set up across the country ; Thieves, looters and criminals are executed without further ado. Due to the lack of sunlight, the plants grow only poorly, and the first post-war harvest is correspondingly modest. Ruth gives birth to her child who, surprisingly, is not deformed.
After a year the sun will return; however, the ozone layer has been destroyed and people are exposed to UV radiation without any protection. The risk of developing cancer and cataracts is high. The lack of plant fertilizer barely allows a harvest to be successful; a lack of insecticides leads to the massive multiplication of pests. Three to eight years after the war, the ozone layer is intact again, at which time the population of Great Britain had sunk to a medieval order of magnitude: of around 55 million, only 4 to 11 million survived the war (corresponding to a population of around 56.5 million at the time a survival rate of 7 to 19.5 percent).
Ruth feeds herself and her daughter with dead rats that a man slips her. In return, she sleeps with him. After ten years Ruth dies, severely damaged by radioactive rays, exhaustion and hard physical labor and aged prematurely; one of her eyes is blinded by the strong UV rays. Her daughter takes note of her mother's death without moving. Like all other teenagers, she has not learned to speak properly, speaks a few words and speaks in very short, difficult-to-understand sentences.
Ruth's daughter (whose name is only mentioned in the credits), like most of the others, spends her time repairing clothes or tilling the fields. In one scene, she strolls through the streets with other young people and steals a piece of bread, which she later argues about with one of the boys. She is raped by him.
In the meantime there is electricity again in a few places; mainly steam engines are used. Mining is done by hand.
In the final scenes of the film, we see Ruth's heavily pregnant daughter (as a result of the rape) dragging through the ruins that still shape the cityscape. She is now thirteen, so the year is 1996, and the scenery shows that Britain is de facto a country from the Middle Ages. She goes to a makeshift hospital and gives birth to her child. It is dead and malformed due to the radiation .
About the film
The film “Threads” works by different means; In addition to the actual plot, there is also the role of a narrator who conveys important background facts to the viewer. The film hardly holds back in depicting the events, but some details are only hinted at (the last scene is an example: the viewer can only guess how terrible the newborn looks, as Ruth's daughter screams at the sight of it - where the scream is replaced by the trailer). Many of the images in the film remain in the viewer's memory for a long time, however - in addition to the corpses and, for example, a sack of dead rats, of course, the mushroom cloud caused by the destruction of Finningley. Incidentally, this was recreated so real that at the time of filming, many citizens actually believed there had been a nuclear attack. The civil defense films of the Protect and Survive program, shot as official information material of the British government, appear at various points in "Threads". The protagonists of Threads follow their advice (ultimately unsuccessfully).
Analogous to the similar US production The Day After , Threads suggests that society will never recover from the disaster.
Several years earlier, the more in the style of a television documentary, but similarly extensive in its drastic British film on the same subject The War Game was produced. The television film, originally shot in 1965, was first broadcast in 1985 because of its disturbing effect.
Reviews
The film has often been compared to The Day After . Many critics rated Threads as the better of the two films. The very realistic representation of the effects of a nuclear war on ordinary civilians was particularly praised, but at the same time criticized that (sometimes very drastic) representations are not suitable for every viewer. Some critics attribute great educational value to the film.
"It is a real education, after watching this you will not be in favor of nuclear weapons."
“It has a really educational effect. Anyone who has seen him will no longer support nuclear weapons. "
Rotten Tomatoes rated the film 4.3 out of 5 points.
Publications
The film was broadcast on BBC2 on September 23, 1984 and repeated a year later on the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , as well as shown in the United States and Australia. After that, the film disappeared in the archives until 2003.
The German synchronization was carried out by ORF and Swiss television under the title "Tag Null". The film was shown on August 6, 1985 by Swiss television and on August 8, 1985 by ORF in the FS2 program. An FSK rating is not known. In the UK, the BBFC rated it 15 and over.
Awards
- In 1985 the film won a BAFTA TV Award in four categories .
Web links
- Threads in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b ARBEITER-ZEITUNG of August 8, 1985, page 12. Accessed on October 24, 2018 .
- ↑ Comparison of threads with The Day After , including pictures. (engl.)
- ↑ Post-apocalypse criticism including pictures ( memento of the original from December 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ criticism Fast Rewind (Engl.)
- ↑ criticism Logan and Glitz (Engl.)
- ↑ meta-criticism on Rotten Tomatoes (Engl.)
- ↑ moviepilot: Threads
- ↑ ARBEITER-ZEITUNG dated August 6, 1985, page 14. Accessed on October 24, 2018 .
