"Kathryn Bigelow has reopened the subject that we all tacitly agree not to discuss or imagine, in the movies or anywhere else: the subject of an actual nuclear strike. It's the subject which tests narrative forms and thinkability levels. Maybe this is why we prefer to see it as something for absurdism and satire a way of not staring into the sun to remember Kubrick's (brilliant) black comedy Dr Strangelove, with no fighting in the war room etc, rather than Lumet's deadly serious Fail Safe."
"with acronyms like PEOC (Presidential Emergency Operations Center) featuring military and civilian personnel in banks of desks, generally in a shallow horseshoe shape facing a very big screen flashing up the threat level from Defcon 2 to Defcon 1 and also showing a large map displaying the missile's current position, which is occasionally replaced with what amounts to a Zoom mosaic of tense faces belonging to high-ranking officials with no idea what to do, dialling in chaotically from their smartphones."
An 18-minute missile flight is replayed from multiple vantage points, representing estimated time from launch to projected arrival in Chicago. Situation rooms and command centers escalate from Defcon 2 to Defcon 1 as personnel scramble. A large central screen alternates with remote video grids of officials dialing in. An intelligence analyst and a hawkish general clash over whether to launch a pre-emptive strike amid profound uncertainty about the missile's origin. The sequence emphasizes decision paralysis, miscommunication, and the psychological nausea of confronting nuclear annihilation.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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