Watch When the Wind Blows For Free

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Good concept, poorly executed.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

I remember seeing this movie on YouTube. I love the use of live action and 2D animation put together and the story was depressing to watch. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union were having a fight with the US and the whole of NATO and that includes England, the country that these two live in. When WWIII started, we see them dying from radiation sickness through the third act of the movie. What the movie was portraying this two couple saying that they'll survive a war if one is coming, as they did during the second world war, showing determination and confidence that they'll survive a nuclear war, which sadly they didn't in the end, it didn't show but you can tell that they were dead. The music sends a depressing chill down your spine and the story makes you feel sorry for the characters. However, despite it being animated, it is not suitable for young kids.

When the Wind Blows is one of those films that keeps on haunting you long after the end credits have stopped rolling.It focuses on an elderly couple preparing for and enduring a nuclear attack on great Britain. Both are endearing in their love for each other, and their naive trust that all will be well if they prepare well. Sadly for them, none of the precautions they take protect them from nuclear fall-out. The point of the couple being naive was to emphasize how ludicrous and futile the advise the government offered to its citizens on how to react to a nuclear blast was. The movie rips all the advise given in the brochures and public information films to shreds by showing a couple who did their best to follow all the prescriptions to the letter, and proving that none of the advise they were given is of any use to them.The writer cleverly chose as his main characters an elderly couple who have survived WW2. It gives him the opportunity to hammer home to the audience that a nuclear war is not going to be even remotely comparable to the hardships of WW2. A lot of people used to say to each other that a nuclear war wouldn't be so bad as the doom-sayers predicted. After all we already survived 2 world wars. Sure many people would die, but most would survive and carry on regardless. Apart from the obvious political messages the movie has, its just a heartbreaking tale about a couple coping with the aftermath of a disaster. Although they bicker like old couples do, it's their love for each other that gets them through the day. They seem like a good team. He's more aware of the reality of the world outside, she's a practical thinker. When he sometimes gets a bit carried away with his memories of world war 2, she gently corrects him. When she panics, or worries about unimportant things like getting the laundry inside before the bomb falls, he protects her by preventing her from doing anything stupid. In the end their love is as strong as ever, which is very moving.This movie in part was intended to give people who were too complacent a wake-up call. I remember seeing it when I was only thirteen thinking I was in for a nice animation film. It shook me up alright. Now I'm older, I see the subtler points of the movie, and it still gives me chills.The opening sequence of the film consisting of news footage doesn't fit in very well with the rest, which is a pity. Personally I would have chosen to let the movie start with the man reading the papers in the library. Other than that, I think the movie made very few mistakes, and the animation styles changing over from sketchy and dreamy sequences, conventional drawn animations, and stop motion techniques work together nicely. As it is it stands out as a great achievement in serious animated movie-history.

Plot: An elderly couple, living in rural England, survive the detonation of a nuclear weapon by stubbornly, loyally, and naively following government-issued pamphlets and publications. While they survive the initial blast, it takes its toll on the lovely married couple, with devastating results.Acting: The acting is phenomenal! It's no wonder that the two lead voice-over actors are so well known and renowned in the U.K.! Their performances grant the appearance of being anyone's grandparents, which leads directly to the sadness of the film.Special Effects/Animation: The mix of stop-motion animation, live-action stock-footage, and standard animation, lend a sort of "childish" cinematography to the proceedings; not that I wish to imply that the quality of the cinematography is poor. Rather, it appears to be just like any other Saturday-morning cartoon from the 1980s. This further adds to the despair and hopelessness of the characters, as radiation-poisoning takes its inevitable toll.Overall: This film is, by and large, one of the most haunting, depressing--yet undeniably effective--"post-nuclear" fiction movies ever made. It is my belief that this film should be shown at every middle school, high school, and college on the face of this Earth, if only at least for the phenomenal animation that it contains. The sadness caused by the film (and by the knowledge that the elderly couple really never had a chance) has truly made quite an impression on me! Certainly, this "Wind" does not blow (if you get my drift): I give it a 10 out of 10!

Based on the graphic novel of the same name by Raymond Briggs, a retired World War II British veteran, Jim Bloggs, and his wife, Hilda, learns about the war between America and the Soviet Union could involved nuclear weapons. Jim begins building a fallout shelter based on the designed from the booklets they received from the government. It was a good thing it was done because days later a nuclear warhead from the Soviet Union was heading their way. Jim gets Hilda to the shelter and survives the blast, but they don't realize… the blast was the least of their problems. After two days, based of the booklets, Jim and Hilda go outside for some fresh air and water.The nuclear weapon had covered their rural area in radiation fallout and the couple gets exposed to heavy amounts of it. As time goes by, they start to suffer from radiation sickness, especially Hilda when she starts to lose her hair. The chances of survival start to fade away, and they are in a stage of confusing in their dying moments. The film ends bleakly for them, as they go into the shelter to pray. Although not seen, it's likely they succumb and pass away from compilations of radiation sickness. The final words from them fade into the night sky, uncertain what will become of them.