"Trust the government, nothing to worry!"
This is a dialogue that is famous in Hong Kong. It comes from a news clip in the beginning of the covid. It is about a group of boomers said they aren't worry about covid, as the government said covid is not danger and they are under control. They said they are not going to wear masks. And then as the pandemic goes on, this clip has become a trending meme in Hong Kong.
But jokes aside, when a large-scale natural disaster or man-made disaster occurs, if the correct preventive measures are taken in advance, a lot of unnecessary casualties can actually be avoided.
Today I want to introduce a movie that perfectly interprets "Trust the government, nothing to worry!"
If a nuclear bomb was dropped on Britain during World War II
"When the Wind Blows" is a 1986 British war animated film. It tells the story of an elderly British couple who followed a flawed government publication to prepare for the impact of a nuclear bomb during World War II.
Many of the suggestions in the government publication are contradictory or will make the situation worse. For example, one page says "Tear down all doors to build a shelter", but the next page tells people to "close all doors". So should we take down the doors or not? The logic is also very strange. If it is safe to stay in a sealed space (which it is not), why would we tear down our own home to build a shelter. Shouldn't we just keep every doors and windows shut instead of tear it down?
The old couple was very optimistic, or maybe too optimistic. The preparation process was more like preparing for a picnic than hiding from a nuclear bomb. The first reaction to the water shortage after the nuclear bomb was "How are we going to make tea?" Damn, it really is a British movie, never forget to drink tea in the end of the world XDD.
The whole process of watching the movie is to watch this old couple make all the possible mistakes, and then as the audience, we are constantly devastated.
(I am grateful that I have the opportunity to being educated.)
I like this movie not because its starting point is not to make fun of the old couple's ignorance, but to criticize the authorities for not protecting civilians. Just imagine, the government only sent pamphlets to ask citizens to solve the problem themselves, and there were no shelters or rescue troops. In the era when nuclear bombs were just introduced and there was no opportunity to access knowledge, I think it is normal for the old couple to make mistakes. After all, it is hard to imagine that there is a weapon that causes greater damage after the bombing, and it is irreversible.
Very interesting mixed animation
The animation style is more like a children's picture book, but at the same time it adds live-action videos, sand paintings, and stop-motion animations to certain scenes to create a weird and uneasy atmosphere. I think this is to express that "under the naivety of the old couple, they have actually been in hell all along. They just don't know it."
(There is an interpretation on the Internet said that the old man/old woman knew that the booklet could not save them, but they could not escape the situation at that time. They could only comfort each other when death was approaching, saying "you will be safe after doing this and that", and they did not point out how desperate the current situation was until the end. However, I think they are really sincere and did not face reality until the end.)
This is an animated film that is worth watching both in terms of plot and animation.
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