when the wind blows
The most depressing animation of all-time.
easily the saddest, bleakest film ever made from a Raymond Briggs picture book, When The Wind Blows sees elderly couple Jim and Hilda (partly based on Briggs’ own parents) living quietly in the Sussex countryside when imminent nuclear war is declared. They’re both fairly clueless about what this means, but Jim’s picked up the official government leaflets and proceeds to follow them to the letter.
“We must build a shelter and refuge,” he tells Hilda – which involves taking the doors off their hinges and propping them against the sittingroom wall at a 60-degree angle.
Inspired by Briggs’ contempt for inept official advice and animated by director Jimmy Murakami (The Snowman), WTWB boasts the starry two-person voice cast of John Mills and Peggy Ashcroft, plus a score by Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters and a title song by David Bowie, no less. The comedy derived from the couple’s helpless naïvety – Jim professing faith in ‘the powers that be’, Hilda dismissing the dangers of fall-out (“If you can’t feel it, it can’t be doing you any harm”) gradually darkens as the aftermath of the attack takes its toll. The ending is nothing short of heartbreaking.
Lavish extras include an actual 1975 animated propaganda film, just to prove Briggs wasn’t exaggerating.