MovieChat Forums > Testament (1984) Discussion > Best of the big three.

Best of the big three.

posted 17 years ago by CorpseCandle
4 replies | jump to latest

Okay if you consider the main three nuclear war films as Threads,The Day After and Testement then in my eyes Testment is the best out of the three.

As chilling and "Real" as Threads was I felt too dirty after watching it and so much so the raw feel of the film made me think twice about even owning the film.
It was basicly too nightmareish to watch again and I haven't since.

The Day After offered a little more melodrama and yes it was a tad more plesent to watch but that really wasn't enough to rescue it from being the weakest of the three.

Testement was about something really important to me FAMILY and the fact that despite the most hideous thing ahppening to the unit each member tried to carry on.
Everything and everyone died piece by piece as the structure and sanity of the mothers world fell away like burning paper. However one thing that the film did make sure to communicate was that the love that was shared within the family could not be contamiated with any amount of fallout,could not be oblitrated with even the biggest nuclear warhead and refused point blank to die in a world where life was told to leave.

The gentle pace of amargeddon that the director and cast allowed this picture to flow with made me cry for the first time whilst watching a film.

[–] Dr_Rude 17 years ago

Forget about Threads, it's a 'Day After'esque rip-off of Peter Watkins FAR superior 'The War Game' (which, oddly enough, won an Academy Award for best documentary). The BBC had it banned for over 20 years by refusing to show it (it aired only years after things like The Day After and Threads had come out).

Perhaps the most authentic and most graphic in the depiction of the immediate after-effects of an atomic attack is the autobiographical Japanese animated feature 'Barefoot Gen' (a story about a family during the Hiroshima-bombing, not much unlike Testament). This film has things in it that couldn't be shown in a live-action film.

Then there's 'On the Beach', perhaps the first anti-WW3-film ever made, starring people like Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins (Perkins plays a loving, caring husband and father, that alone is worth to mention). Despite being less graphic in it's depiction of radiation desease than Testament, it's no less bleak.

I'd say that you should go see at least 'The War Game' and 'On the Beach' (the latter being a definite influence on Testament). But of the three you mentioned, Testament wins hands down.

[–] CorpseCandle 17 years ago

I really like Threads because it's so raw(if you can really like something as bleak as Threads) The War Game is great(again) because it is so matter of fact. It sends shivers through me because it is set out like "this is you and this is how youre going to die".

I have yet to see On The Beach and Barefoot Gen,if Barefoot is anywhere near as good as When The Wind Blows then it should be a deffinate watch.
I read the book of On The Beach which is pretty damn good and heartbreaking,I hope to be getting cable soon and the movie channels run it a lot here(or at least last time I loked) so I need to see that one.

Thanks for the recomendations ;)

[–] star_71092 17 years ago

Threads and TDA were both good,although Threads after a while just left me feeling grossed out and not much else.TDA kept me awake,no lie........

"Fame was like a drug.But what was even more like a drug were the drugs."
-Homer Simpson

[–] vocklabruck 17 years ago

I wouldn't say Testament was the best. It's different, not better or worse than the others. If you think The Day After or Threads forgot the family subject you didn't watch them carefully.

Testament was made with a symbolic point of view. In a real nuclear disaster you don't have trees, water, working cars, sunlight, anything. It's not the typical nuke film, with blasts and science terms, that's why it cannot be compared with the other two.