Fallout is on Amazon Prime Video
Anyone who has played even just one game in the (today) Bethesda series knows this, and couldn’t wait for anything else: the world of Fallout it’s perfect for passive storytelling, because it’s rich in detail and personality without being too tied to a specific canon or untouchable timeline. And indeed Fallout has become a TV series, which has just arrived on Amazon Prime Video: it couldn’t have chosen a better historical moment than this to come out, given that, whether we want it or not, we are increasingly talking about the return of the atomic bomb and the nuclear apocalypse. Hurray!
The best way to exorcise a fear is… we don’t know, we are not psychologists, but sometimes talking about it, imagining it, understanding what it will be like, can be useful, if not to cancel it, at least to keep it at bay. And in fact the history of post-World War II cinema is full of films in which the so-called “nuclear threat” is at the center of the story, or in the background disguised as a metaphor – think of Doctor Strangeloveor a Godzilla. Fallout, however, talks about the aftermath, the world after the bombs: there is relatively less material on this topic. Enough, however, to select ten films and present them to you in alphabetical order below: good paranoia!
How I live now
The photo doesn’t immediately make you think of atomic war, and in fact the film with Saoirse Ronan is first and foremost a romance. But it’s set in a world where suddenly the nuclear threat stops being speculative and becomes very real. A sensational flop at the box office, it is nevertheless an interesting reflection on what it is like to live in relative normality when bombs fall in the rest of the world.
Mad Max
Which? All of them, with the exception perhaps of the first in which the post-apocalypse is not yet well defined and has not permeated every aspect of Max’s world. Having to choose one we would tell you Fury Road, which is not only a post-nuclear film but in which the atomic issue is central, to the point of characterizing, for example, the entire aesthetic of Immortan Joe’s War Boys. And then, hey, it is Fury Road.
Tank Girl
Demented and female version of Mad Maxwith an absolutely irrepressible Lori Petty, Tank Girl it is a forgotten pearl of the nineties, a classic post-apocalyptic story (even if not necessarily postnuclear, but it will not be the first exception on the list) but told with an anarchic, colorful, irreverent and very, very chaotic spirit. Among other things, we would like to point out the presence of a very young Naomi Watts.
Testament
The very sad story of a small Californian community that survives the nuclear holocaust but remains closed in on itself and ends up falling apart from the inside. In addition to a sensational Jane Alexander, we also highlight Kevin Costner in the cast in one of his first roles (but not the last in which he dealt with the post-apocalypse).
The Book of Eli
The writer readily admits that he is not a great fan of The Book of Eli, which however, thanks above all to Denzel Washington, has earned a following of loyal fans over the years. Regardless of taste, however, it is impossible not to mention it, given that it is probably the closest thing to a film by Fallout that has ever been filmed.
The Day After – The day after
A TV film produced by ABC, it is a film that imagines a very classic nuclear war between the USA and the Soviet Union (it is from 1983), and recounts its possible consequences with almost chronicle inspiration. Even Ronald Reagan saw it, commenting that it had made him incredibly depressed.
The Divide
Straight and bad like all Xavier Gens’ films, The Divide it is the story of a nuclear attack and its consequences on the inhabitants of a very normal apartment building. It’s all about closed spaces, claustrophobia, paranoia and bad soldiers: not recommended if you’re already in a bad mood.
The Road
Another exception, given that in the film based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy the nuclear motivation behind the apocalypse is not indicated (in reality no explanation is given of the state in which the world finds itself). But ultimately it’s really important Why has the planet gone to shit, if the result is always gray skies, unbreathable air, drought, dust everywhere, dead plants…?
Threads
Basically the English answer to The Day After: It’s a TV movie produced by the BBC about, well, it says all over it. Supported by meticulous research into the effects of nuclear winter, completely uninterested in poetry and focused entirely on the documentary side of the project, it is one of the most depressing films ever released in over 100 years of cinema history.
A boy, a dog, two inseparable friends
We end on a happy note: A Boy and his Doga forerunner among other things of the equally post-apocalyptic one Love & Monsters, is a nuclear comedy about a boy who wanders around the desert that is the United States in the company of his telepathic dog, who has the characteristic of identifying women for him to rape and communicating their location to him. OK, maybe “cheerful” wasn’t the right word…
Fallout, the TV series card.
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