on the beach

[ljplicease]

I finally got around to watching On the Beach (as I promised in March). It was a lot better than I expected it to be, the characters were compelling but I knew the story already and the conclusion of the film is depressing. I thought they over used the tune Waltzing Matilda. I was concerned about this back in March when I heard them use the tune in the NPR broadcast about radiation as a bogeyman throughout the history of film. I've always had a morbid interest in post-apocalyptic fiction, The Last Sunset computer game series that I wrote in high school was itself a post-apocalyptic story. I think such stories tell us more about how we see ourselves that it does about what the end of the world would actually look like. The US TV series Jericho and the UK series Survivors portray groups of people after their respective apocalypses hanging firmly on to their pre-apocalyptic values in a world where ethics and morals have been set aside by virtually everyone else. This conceit dispelled the suspension of disbelieve for me personally, but I still enjoyed aspects of both shows. The novel The Road (never saw the film) seemed more plausible to me, but it is still very much about maintaining morals. I don't think people would want to read a book or watch a film in which post-apocalyptic was treated more rigorously. On the Beach is different because everyone dies in the end, everyone in the world, and the story is more about how individuals and society deals with this inevitable fact. The radiation is coming from the north, and it hits Melbourne last. People do not run for the south and become refugees. They are stoic. I think this reflects the novel's author Nevil Shute's personal world view, more than reality.

Comments

[plicease]

Have not seen The Quiet Earth, but may have to check it out.

[plicease]

I like the ending. Very enigmatic.

[butterflyblob.livejournal.com]

I loved On the Beach, and also liked it better than The Road. (The film of The Road is terrible, btw. Don't even bother.) I read that Nevil Shute started out wanting to write an optimistic book about how Australians survived a nuclear holocaust--like something along the lines of Alas, Babylon--and then he did research and realized no one would survive the radiation from a worldwide nuclear war.

Have you seen Threads, the old BBC movie?

[plicease]

I have not seen Threads, but may or may not be downloading it right now :)

Can you remember if this quote is accurate? This is from Bill Bryson's book on Australia:

As late as 1957 in On the Beach, the Nevil Shute novel in which a nuclear war leaves Australia as the last inhabited place on earth, the author could have his Australian heroine lament: "I was going home in March. To London. it's been arranged for years... It's so bloody unfair." By "home" she means a country she has never seen and now never will.

[butterflyblob.livejournal.com]

I don't remember it, but I read the book at least eight years ago now. I should reread it sometime.

Threads is ridiculously depressing, but probably my favorite movie about a nuclear holocaust.

[plicease]

I agree depressing and makes you hope that you don't survive a nuclear holocaust, but sort of brilliantly well thought out from beginning to end.

[butterflyblob.livejournal.com]

I hunted it down after seeing The Day After, which is basically the U.S. version of Threads that was made in the same year, and it's much better.

[plicease]

I watched The Day After too. I am always find it interesting to watch comparable US and BBC productions.