When the Wind Blows

When the Wind Blows is a 1986 British adult animated disaster film directed by Jimmy Murakami based on Raymond Briggs' graphic novel of the same name. The film stars the voices of John Mills and Peggy Ashcroft as the two main characters and was scored by Roger Waters. The film recounts a rural English couple's attempt to survive a nearby nuclear attack and maintain a sense of normality in the subsequent fallout and nuclear winter. Plot Jim Bloggs and his wife Hilda are an elderly couple, living in an isolated cottage in rural Sussex, in southeast England. Jim frequently travels to the local town to read newspapers and keep abreast of the deteriorating international situation regarding the Soviet–Afghan War, which is threatening to escalate into an all-out nuclear conflict between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. Hearing a radio news report stating that a war may be only days away, Jim follows the instructions outlined in the government-issued Protect and Survive pamphlets to build a fallout shelter, including covering the windows with white paint and readying sacks to lie down in when a nuclear strike hits. Despite apprehension, Jim and Hilda are confident they can survive, as they did the Second World War, and that a Soviet defeat will ensue. As a radio transmission warns of an imminent ICBM strike, the couple rush to their shelter, just escaping as distant shock waves batter their home. They emerge after a few nights to find that all utilities, services and communications have been destroyed. Jim and Hilda remain stoic and try to resume their daily routine, preparing tea and dinners on a camping stove, noting numerous errands they will have to run once the crisis passes, and trying to renew their evaporated water stock with rainwater. Jim believes that a rescue operation will soon be launched to help civilians. They venture outside where radioactive ash has blocked out the sun and caused heavy fog. They are oblivious to the dead and dying animals strewn across the landscape, the destroyed buildings of the nearby town and the scorched vegetation outside their cottage. Their initial optimism begins to fade due to the prolonged isolation, lack of food and water, growing radiation sickness, and absence of communication from the authorities. Jim worries that the Soviet military will soon invade, experiencing a vision where a Soviet soldier breaks into their house.