When the Wind Blows (1986, GBR) C-81m. *** D: Jimmy T. Murakami. Starring (the voices of) Sir John Mills, Peggy Ashcroft, Robin Houston. Remarkable animated anti-war treatise about two elderly people, the only characters in this story, who in their rural cottage somewhere in England are faced with the threat of a possible nuclear war. The man, old enough to have seen WW2, starts preparing for the bomb. Husband and wife seem to live in their own world and often appear foolish, but what follows is dead serious. Chilling, sad, with simple animation, but story will leave you breathless. From a novel by Raymond Briggs. Title song by David Bowie.


© Ron Altman