Winner of the 1967 Oscar for Best Documentary, this “what-if” dramatization of nuclear war in Britain is light-years ahead of its time. Following the success of his imaginative Culloden (1964, a re-creation of a famous historical battle using very contemporary techniques and perspectives), Watkins wrote and directed this jarring, though thoroughly researched, film for the BBC. Upon completion, forces from within and without the government urged that the film not be broadcast, so its presentational medium was not the intended, affecting site of television, but rather the more selective theater circuit (though ultimately having the distinction of worldwide acclaim, television would have provided for more domestic viewers and a more forceful immediate reaction).
The War Game postulates a very possible contingency of how nuclear campaigns would devastate the island. Predicting that the highly populated, industrial centers would be first to fall, the film begins a primary investigation of how a center located around Canterbury would react. Watkins employs VERY naturalistic actors who deal with the conflict in jarringly helpless ways. The scenes of brutal terror, post-bomb institutional destruction, and long-term abjection are all realized in relatively simple ways, but the work’s grittiness and unflinching analysis make the hurt too closely realized. If Culloden showed that Watkins had a visionary grasp on history, The War Game illustrates his equally strong affinity for future projections.
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