The pending invasion of Iran and the recent “seismic event” in North Korea are a wake-up call that the Cold War never completely thawed out; it just went a little tepid. It also made me all misty-eyed for the last golden era of anti-nuke films, circa 1980-1984 (a veritable flurry of cautionary tales, spurred on, no doubt, by the dreaded thought of Evil Empire hatin’ Ronnie R’s itchy trigger finger wagging ever more perilously close to The Button).
One of the best of the bunch (and as timely as ever) is 1983’s Testament(Paramount DVD). Originally an “American Playhouse” presentation on PBS, the film was released to theatres and garnered a well-deserved Best Actress nomination for Jane Alexander (she lost to Shirley MacLaine). Director Lynne Littman takes a low key, deliberately paced approach, but pulls no punches. Alexander, her husband (William DeVane) and three children (Roxana Zal, Ross Harris and Lukas Haas) live in sleepy Hamlin, California, an idyllic, Speilbergian suburbia, where it’s just another day of getting the kids off to school, Dad off to work, and the garbage cans out to the curb. Alexander is directing the local elementary school production of “The Pied Piper Of Hamlin” (which becomes a significant, if somewhat obvious, allegory for what is about to happen to the citizenry of the “real” Hamlin).The children’s afternoon cartoons are interrupted by a news flash that a number of nuclear explosions have occurred in New York. Then there is a flash of a whole different kind when nearby San Francisco (where DeVane has gone on a business trip) receives a direct strike. There is no exposition on the political climate that precipitates the attacks, but I think this is a wise decision by the filmmakers because it helps us zero in on the essential humanistic message of the film. All of the post-nuke horrors ensue, but they are presented sans the histrionics and melodrama that plagued the more widely-seen (and in my opinion, inferior) “The Day After”. The fact that the nightmarish scenario unfolds amidst such everyday banality is what makes it so believably horrifying. As the children (and adults) of Hamlin succumb to the inevitable scourge of radiation sickness and (just like the children of the imaginary Hamlin) steadily “disappear”, one by one, we are left haunted by the final line of the school production-“Your children are not dead. They will return when the world deserves them.” Amen.
Update: Digby here. There have been a few comments/questions as to why we link to Amazon since they are a soulless, hegemonic fascist corporation and all. First, let me be clear that I am the one doing the linking, not Dennis, and I do it because if one of you fine folks decided to purchase one of these films, Amazon kicks back a couple of sheckles and it helps support the site. I know that nobody who reads this blog believes that I have any magical power to compel people to buy things against their will so I feel quite confident that everyone can make their own decisions in these matters. There are, needless to say, many fine places to buy DVD’s or rent them. The public library even lets you check them out for free! (The good news is that all the money we’ve made from this scam project makes us almost as well paid as 9 year old rug makers in Bangladesh, so we’re very grateful.)
The idea of this feature was simply to spark some interesting conversation about the intersection of movies and politics on the week-ends when everyone gets a little bit worn out from the news cycle. Popular culture is some powerful mojo on our society and I don’t think we talk about it enough or use it enough. Plus it’s fun.
