Was it because it was a "made-for-TV movie," a label that was once a byword for mediocrity, that I never saw Threads before now? Or was it that I knew what it was about and didn't need to put myself through watching a film that existed to tell me something I already knew: that nuclear war would be unspeakably horrible? But knowing is one thing and seeing is another. Threads is propaganda of the best kind, designed to disseminate truth rather than opinion. Its visceral but wholly credible horrors make criticism impotent, even though as a creative work it's not immune to criticism: There is some clunky dialogue; the narrative voiceover is awkwardly inserted and sometimes sententious; the evocation of a nativity scene near the end is too obvious. But the performances of the unknown actors, the skillful editing of stock footage into vividly staged scenes, and the unrestrained depiction of human suffering and degradation add up to a punch to the gut. Threads is a movie that has to be seen, or ought to be at least by anyone who holds a political or military position and needs to be have what it's trying to tell us engraved on their consciences. And that boils down to a demonstration of something often attributed to, of all people, Nikita Khrushchev: that in the aftermath of a nuclear war, the living would envy the dead.
