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The storyline goes that when given warning of air raid attacks from Soviet forces an elderly couple draw on their past experiences on the Second World War to build a bomb proof shelter and 'tough it out' instead of evacuating.
When the bomb which falls turns out to be an atomic one, their homemade shelter is obvious rendered obsolete. From here on the cartoon becomes rather harrowing. As you watch the sweet old couple (of whom any one can project their own grandparents onto) fall pray to the slow internal cirrhosis cause by radiation poisoning.
I watched this film at school in terror, knowing that if this was one day to happen during my life time that what I was watching unfold before my eyes would too be my fate.
The film was released in 1986, so at the time it had massive political relevance which is why I find the choice of animation so strange.
It is animated in the same soft cheery way as the 1991 ‘Father Christmas’.(Have a merry blooming merry Christmas) These soft and warm cartoons give a very sinister air.
It may have been chosen to take the edge off of a pressing fear, to render it less real by making it a cartoon. Or maybe the opposite, to highlight that if a war did break out then no matter how safe, cosy and familiar your life was it would effect normal everyday people.
All in all a successful, thought provoking and touching film that makes you cherish what you have and ultimately hope your killed instantly when the bomb first falls.
8/10
