20 years ago I saw the almost unbearably cold and critical animationfilm, When the wind blows: a Dr. Strangelove without the cartoonish satirical elements thrown in. David Bowie wrote the title song. I worked a while on the text to make a theatreplay out of it, but I never brought it to the stage…. This is a film (1986) that wants to show the bomb drop, with little regard to the how and why, and then show in painstaking detail just how the body will rot and die afterwards.
The film, based on the graphic novel by Raymond Briggs, focuses solely on the lives of an elderly couple, one that has been through countless wars already.  Understandably, given their storied past, they have been taught to trust their governments unconditionally, and consult their nifty little government pamphlet telling them how to build a shelter and live for days after the attack.  After building this shelter, which essentially consists of building a little fort within the main walls of the house, they are told to simply wait for government assistance to happily come by and pick them up.  I am not ruining the film by saying that does not happen.