When the Wind Blows (1986 film)

When the Wind Blows
Directed by	Jimmy Murakami[1]
Produced by	John Coates[1]
Written by	Raymond Briggs (also graphic novel)
Starring	John Mills Peggy Ashcroft
Music by	Roger Waters
Distributed by	United Kingdom: Recorded Releasing United States: Kings Road Entertainment Japan: Nippon Herald Films/At Entertainment
Release dates	United Kingdom: 24 October 1986 Portugal: 17 February 1987 (Fantasporto Film Festival) United States: 11 March 1988 Japan: 25 July 1987[2][3]
Running time	80 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Box office	$5,274[4]

When the Wind Blows is a 1986 British animated disaster film directed by Jimmy Murakami based on Raymond Briggs' graphic novel of the same name. The film stars the voices of John Mills and Peggy Ashcroft as the two main characters.

The film was Briggs' second collaboration with TVC, after their efforts with a special based on another work of his, The Snowman, in 1982. It was distributed by Recorded Releasing in the UK, and by Kings Road Entertainment in the United States. A subsequent graphic novel by Briggs, Ethel and Ernest (1998), makes it clear that Briggs based the protagonist couple in When the Wind Blows on his own parents.

When the Wind Blows is a hybrid of drawn animation and stop-motion animation. The characters of Jim and Hilda Bloggs are drawn, but their home and most of the objects in it are real objects that seldom move but are animated with stop motion when they do.

The soundtrack album features music by David Bowie (who performed the title song), Roger Waters, Genesis, Squeeze, Hugh Cornwell and Paul Hardcastle.

Plot summary

James and Hilda Bloggs are a retired couple living in a tidy isolated cottage in rural Sussex in southeast England. James frequently travels to London to read the newspapers and keep abreast of the deteriorating international situation; while frequently misunderstanding some specifics, he is fully aware of the growing risk of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. James is horrified at a radio news report stating that a war may be only three days away, and sets about preparing for the worst as instructed by his government-issued Protect and Survive pamphlets. As Hilda continues her daily routine, and their son Ron dismisses such preparations as pointless (referencing the song "We'll All Go Together When We Go" by Tom Lehrer), James builds a lean-to shelter inside their home (which he consistently calls the "inner core or refuge" per the pamphlets) and prepares a stock of supplies. He also follows through seemingly strange instructions such as painting his windows with white paint and readying sacks to lie down in when a nuclear strike hits. Despite James' concerns, he and Hilda are confident they can survive the war, as they did World War II in their childhoods, and that a Soviet defeat will ensue.

Hearing a warning on the radio of an imminent ICBM strike, James rushes himself and Hilda into their shelter, just escaping injury as distant shock waves rack their home. They remain in the shelter a couple of nights, and when they emerge they find all their utilities, services and communications have been destroyed by the blast. Over the following days, they gradually grow sick from radiation poisoning. Ron and his wife Beryl are not heard from again.

In spite of all this, James and Hilda stoically attempt to carry on, preparing tea and dinners on a camping stove, noting numerous errands they will have to run once the crisis passes, and trying to renew their evaporated water stock with (contaminated) rainwater. James keeps faith that a rescue operation will be launched to help civilians. Apparently oblivious to the dead animals, ruined buildings and scorched, dead vegetation outside their cottage (apart from their own garden), they initially remain optimistic. However, as they take in the debris of their home, prolonged absence of other human company, lack of food and water, growing radiation sickness, and confusion about the events that have taken place, the couple begins to despair.

After a few days, the Bloggs are practically bedridden, and Hilda is despondent when her hair begins to fall out, after vomiting, developing cancerous and painful sores and lesions and experiencing bleeding gums. Either in denial about the extent of the nuclear holocaust, unable to comprehend it, or trying to comfort Hilda, James is still confident that emergency services will eventually arrive, but they never do, as they were also presumably destroyed in the attack. The film ends with the dying James and Hilda getting into paper sacks, crawling back into the shelter, and praying. Jim begins with the Lord's Prayer, but then switches to the first lines of "The Charge of the Light Brigade", whose militaristic and ironic undertones distress the dying Hilda, who weakly begs him not to continue. Finally, Jim's voice mumbles away into silence. The last frames of the film focus on the outside of their shelter, which is seen slowly floating through and into the darkened radiated cloudy sky, then disappears into a brightening sun, and the whole scenery turned into a beautiful blue sky with clouds floating by. At the very end of the closing credits, a Morse code signal taps out "MAD", mutual assured destruction.

Soundtrack

When the Wind Blows
Soundtrack album by Various artists, and Roger Waters & the Bleeding Heart Band
Released	16 May 1986
Recorded	Winter 1985
Length	45:36
Label	Virgin
Producer	Roger Waters, David Bowie, Hugh Cornwell, Peter Hammond, Paul Hardcastle & Squeeze
Roger Waters chronology
The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking (1984) When the Wind Blows (1986) Radio K.A.O.S. (1987)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[5]

Track listing

All tracks written by Waters and performed by Waters and The Bleeding Heart Band except where noted. On some versions of the album, the Roger Waters tracks are all put into one 24:26 song. The lyrics to the closing song, "Folded Flags", feature a reference to the song "Hey Joe" in the lines "Hey Joe, where you goin' with that gun in your hand?" and "Hey Joe, where you goin' with that dogma in your head?"^[6]

1. "When the Wind Blows" (lyrics: Bowie; music: Bowie, Erdal Kızılçay) – 3:35
   • Performed by David Bowie
2. "Facts And Figures" (Hugh Cornwell) – 4:19
   • Performed by Hugh Cornwell
3. "The Brazilian" (Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford) – 4:51
   • Performed by Genesis
4. "What Have They Done?" (Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook) – 3:39
   • Performed by Squeeze
5. "The Shuffle" (Hardcastle) – 4:16
   • Performed by Paul Hardcastle
6. "The Russian Missile" – 0:10
7. "Towers of Faith" – 7:00
8. "Hilda's Dream" – 1:36
9. "The American Bomber" – 0:07
10. "The Anderson Shelter" – 1:13
11. "The British Submarine" – 0:14
12. "The Attack" – 2:53
13. "The Fall Out" – 2:04
14. "Hilda's Hair" – 4:20
15. "Folded Flags" – 4:51

Personnel

The Bleeding Heart Band

• Roger Waters – bass guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals on "Towers of Faith" and "Folded Flags"
• Jay Stapley – guitar
• John Gordon – bass guitar
• Matt Irving – keyboards, organ
• Nick Glennie-Smith – piano, organ
• John Linwood – Linn programming
• Freddie Krc – drums, percussion
• Mel Collins – saxophone
• Clare Torry – backing vocals on "Towers of Faith"
• Paul Carrack – keyboards and vocals on "Folded Flags"

Home media releases

The film was released on VHS in the United Kingdom by CBS/Fox Video after its theatrical run, and later on laserdisc. After a short theatrical run in the United States in one theatre and grossing $5,274 at the box office in 1988, it was released on VHS by IVE and on laserdisc by Image Entertainment. It was released on DVD in 2005 by Channel 4, with 0 region coding: the official UK DVD is still PAL format. The film was re-released on DVD in September 2010, again by Channel 4, it is formatted in NTSC and All region coding. A Blu-Ray release is slated for 11 November 2014.

See also

• List of animated feature-length films
• List of nuclear holocaust fiction

References

External links

• Toonhound pages on original graphic novel and animated film
• When the Wind Blows at AllMovie
• When the Wind Blows at The Big Cartoon DataBase
• When the Wind Blows at the Internet Movie Database
• When the Wind Blows at Rotten Tomatoes