Those who grew up in the Cold War remember a time when the threat of nuclear annihilation on a global scale felt very real, tangible and something that wasn’t just possible – it was likely.
After the break-up of the Soviet Union however, the world seemed to move on with the possibility of nuclear war seemingly less likely as the years went by.
Filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow hopes to bring back those Cold War fears again with her new thriller feature “A House of Dynamite” which is set to launch in a few days at the Venice Film Festival.
The “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Point Break” and “Strange Days” filmmaker has kept the project pretty close to her vest – we’ve only had a short synopsis, no trailer and very limited publicity materials thus far. We do know Noah Oppenheim (“Jackie”) penned the script, which shows the White House response, in real time, to incoming ICBM’s aimed at the United States.
Now, the festival has added a ‘director’s statement’ to the film’s page, one which offers an insight as to what aims Bigelow has for the film:
“I grew up in an era when hiding under your school desk was considered the go-to protocol for surviving an atomic bomb. It seems absurd now – and it was – but at the time, the threat felt so immediate that such measures were taken seriously.
Today, the danger has only escalated. Multiple nations possess enough nuclear weapons to end civilisation within minutes. And yet, there’s a kind of collective numbness – a quiet normalisation of the unthinkable.
How can we call this ‘defense’ when the inevitable outcome is total destruction? I wanted to make a film that confronts this paradox – to explore the madness of a world that lives under the constant shadow of annihilation, yet rarely speaks of it.”
Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Greta Lee, Anthony Ramos, Tracy Letts, Jason Clarke, Kaitlyn Dever, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Moses Ingram, Brian Tee, Jonah Hauer-King, and Kyle Allen star in the film.
Netflix has high hopes for it as it will receive a limited theatrical run before hitting the streamer on October 24th.
Source: World of Reel
