When the Wind Blows (1986)
* * * *
An amazing story which resonates strongly in this age where
war and violence seems to be a constant theme on TV. The famous story,
originally written by Raymond Briggs as a graphic novel, is creative and holds
a very important message to the public as well as the government. This will
possibly contain spoilers.
The characters, especially Jim, are so completely loveable
that this story becomes even more heart-wrenching as you are constantly hoping
that their luck will change. The fact that they are animated added to this
further as their faces could be rounder and their actions more perfected. It
could be argued that because they are animated can detached the audience
somewhat to their story as it becomes less real; although this is a 'what-if'
scenario so animation is perfect.
A slight annoyance with the animation is the fact it became
overly fanciful at some points, to the detriment of the story. I have not read
the graphic novel so I do not know how true to that the film is, but for me the
random artistic interludes seemed slightly pointless.