I have not really been feeling all that motivated enough to watch feature length films as of late, and even some television shows have failed to maintain my attention as I attempt to find things to watch and feel fresh and capable of pulling me out of this sudden wave of immense boredom that I have felt. Every so often I have tried to find something new, and some things have managed to entertain me despite my general mood being completely uninterested in watching things.
I have never really found myself all that interested in films from the United Kingdom. Something about them, and I admit that it is quite an ignorant mindset to have, just bores me to death. I think it might be the lack of imagination and total familiarity in seeing stories told within the general space I inhabit. It fails to pull my attention given I feel the reality of what life here is really like, where interesting things don't really happen at all. Much of our films and television shows are period pieces as a result: focusing on history and the culture we had rather than today's weird environment in which much of the country is either farmland or housing estates.
Curiosity took over the other day, however. And I chose to watch a film I have heard of many times throughout the years, but never really knew anything about other than what its poster looked like. This film was often referred to as incredibly bleak or downright amazing; a rare piece of British filmmaking from the 80s that surprises. I do not really know what made me finally bite the bait and choose to watch it, but I certainly was not all that pleased by it by the time it came to an end. This film, Threads, also holds some slight significance and relevance to our current troubled times, as conflict takes reign throughout Europe. Had I known the relevance, I probably would have continued to ignore the film.
Threads
Despite my disappointment in the film as the runtime went on, Threads is a film that certainly did surprise me in a more positive note in the first half of said runtime. It is a film that really manages to tell an interesting story in the way it introduces characters and its narrative through visual and audio storytelling. The way it does this really ramped up the tension and made watching it grow increasingly more stressful. I find it rare that a film can really impact me in such a manner, but it really did cause some anxiety. Perhaps this was due to our current times alongside many, many similarities to how this film's events unfold and today's world.
I realise at this point into my post that I have failed to actually discuss the subject that the film itself is about. Well, Threads is about the build-up to and results of a nuclear exchange between NATO and the Soviets during the 80s. Perhaps, back then the fear of a nuclear exchange was certainly more real and misunderstood due to the Cold War, but the similarities in how the film displays the events that lead to this event are rather discomforting. Our characters are regular citizens living in Sheffield as the Soviets engage in a conflict in the East, as do NATO on the opposite end. What unfolds slowly is a decrease in the food supply, an increase in general costs, and plenty of riots.
The way these events are displayed to us are quite creative, and very real. We're given snippets of news reports from both the radio and television throughout numerous environments. At first, these news reports are minor and do not really manage to maintain the interest of the many. They're mostly ignored as people go about their lives as the television or radio broadcast continues to discuss the rising tensions between countries. The camera will stay fixed in a particular area of the room as our characters pay no attention, and roam around living their lives with little regard for much else. Though, as the tensions raise, panic does slowly start to set in, and people begin to pay more attention to these reports.
The tension escalates rapidly through this style of both visual and audio storytelling, and it was really discomforting to have the directing portray these events as if you are the only one to pay attention to them from the start. Very few seem to realise what is unfolding until it is far too late, and through this you also feel rather trapped alongside them. This first half of the film and the storytelling is genuinely incredible. However, things fall flat once this tension has no other place to go.
The Second Half
Threads completely lost me in its second half. Once the tension had risen to a degree in which there was no other place to go, the film takes a completely different style and tone. It ditches our characters for the most part and almost feels like a heavy propaganda film; I even remembered the times in which I was in school and we'd see the anti-drug videos that displayed all forms of alcohol and drugs as some horrific things that would instantly kill you and cause your limbs to suddenly fall off. It starts to seem more like a documentary film with a strong bias that promotes the idea of fear as it abandons a narrative.
The problem is that once the film reaches its height in tension and the nuclear exchange takes place, there is nothing really left to be said. Instead it displays a very, very dark world in which everything is completely destroyed. Food disappears entirely, society has almost entirely collapsed, and we move from character to character for no real reason other than to display the generational impact such an exchange could have. Though, we know this. Instead, it feels very forced and like it is trying to scare us. All aspects of fiction are gone.
This jumping from character to character completely lost me. I found myself just not caring for any of the points it was trying to make, and the story just disappeared. Instead we saw this almost dreamlike (or nightmarish) world in which nothing is really happening or going on. Efforts to rebuild and start over are mostly ignored. The film considers total destruction of everything. There's no attempts to connect with other countries, because that would show a connected world instantly ready to rebuild and remove some of that fear of a nuclear exchange.
While I do understand the point it wanted to make, it was not done at all well towards the end. It felt like pure fearmongering and entirely displaying the worst-case scenario. The writing almost disappeared. The performances became annoying. The directing was dark but not all that interesting. It was as if the two parts of the film were made by completely different people with different goals in mind.
That said, I can't deny that the film's first half was incredible in the ways in which it developed its characters and story. Though perhaps there's some relation to the fact that all these events and characters, their stories and lives in particular, could be wiped out within an instant. However, I still believe it could have been addressed better.
