We welcome Jeffrey Babcock once more to the Vondelbunker for another edition of the Atomic Cafe Cinema with a free screening of Threads, a chilling, bleak look at the consequences of a nuclear exchange and the subsequent breakdown of society. While we will turn on the heating to keep the cold away, the freezing cold we’ve been feeling lately makes the Vondelbunker a bit more chilled out than we prefer. Make sure you wear warm clothing!
THREADS 1984
Directed by Mick Jackson
112 minutes
In English
We are, according to calculations, closer to the the outbreak of nuclear war than anytime since the 1960s… the ‘Doomsday clock’ has now been moved 2 minutes to midnight. So it seems like a good time to dig up this cinematic gold nugget that deals with this issue head on. This still remains one of the most relevant and unforgettable movies from the 80s. It is the kind of film that is almost impossible to be unaffected by, and it was responsible for radically changing the lives of many.
There were two hard-hitting movies made in Britain about the possibility of a nuclear war. One is by Peter Watkins called The War Game, which was banned by the BBC in 1965. The other film, made almost twenty years later, was called Threads, and it was aired in September 1984. It was seen by tens of millions of viewers, who were absolutely shocked to the core. It is a simple dramatization of what would happen if a nuclear bomb was dropped on England. There is no need for me to go into details about this searing flick, it is something that just has to be seen to be believed. In America they made a few films based on this same idea, but they were always phony and overly-sentimental. This is the real thing. It is based on a screenplay by Barry Hines (Ken Loach’s Kes) and nominated for seven BAFTA Awards.
This will be an extremely rare high-definition screening… and it’s in the perfect location for such an intense, life-altering flick.
ATOMIC CAFE CINEMA @ VONDELBUNKER
Doors open at 20:30, film starts at 9
Entrance: free