Testament
1983, USA
dir. Lynn Littman
cast: Jane
Alexander, William Devane, Rossie Harris
The Wetherlys are
an average small town American family, struggling to survive in the
aftermath of a nuclear war. Dad was in LA when the missiles hit and
never made it home. Mum has to watch her kids sicken and die of
radiation poisoning, while trying to keep things going.
Contemporary with
films like Threads and The Day After, Testament
features none of the scenes of mass destruction, mass panics or
looting but is equally as harrowing, albeit in a much more quiet,
restrained fashion. The family dies off one by one, and she has to
bury her kids in the back garden, stitched up in bedsheets. At the
same time, it does show the how people really come together in
disasters- the town pulls together to try and survive, orphaned kids
are cared for and people start looking out for each other. That said,
the end scene where the mother considers ending it all it for her and
surviving kid by gas themselves in the garage is one of the most
wrenching in any post-apocalypse movie.
Not as iconic as Threads, but equally as harrowing.
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