Excellent
Just seen it on BBC4 .. what a good film
shareRiveting, wonderfully acted too.
Only didn't quite understand the point David was making with his story from his childhood, how it related to the present discussion?
It was an analogy.
As a boy he was given the chance, by his father, to sweep a misdemeanour under the carpet.
Instead, he chose to face the consequences of his actions and take his punishment, come what may. It was a question of honour for his family and made his father proud.
Taking that forward, he chose to use nuclear weapons because the nation had signed up for them and the responsibilities that came with their ownership and therefore they must be used.
The misdemeanour might be owning nuclear weapons in the first place but they are there as a deterrent and if someone uses them against you (or your allies) then you must use them in retaliation. It was a question of honour to stand by your allies and use the weapons.
Indeed. I thought this was superb, having just literally finished it and only having caught it by chance via reading the good old Radio Times.
My only criticism is that the tantalising plot point planted by Gary during the interlude - that someone, somewhere, is going to fire on someone else - is left dangling in favour of a more conventional (no pun intended) exploration of the morality of first strike nuclear weapons usage. The truckers' dispute too seemed more of a red herring than I expected, since to me it felt obvious (before the fictional conflict turned serious) that the scenario was being used to generate ideas to address that. Views??
www.chrismrogers.net, a website for architecture and visual culture
I was expecting a phone call to interrupt the meeting on the last day saying there is a crisis happening, as you said Gary mentioned someone was going to attack someone.
shareYes, that would have tied the two strands - the morality and the actuality - together nicely, thanks. As it is I think we are just having to assume that the 'minor bit of *beep* in fact became major, and thus what they were role playing was about to turn real very soon.
www.chrismrogers.net, a website for architecture and visual culture
Yep that's what I took from it, something was brewing somewhere and as one of the characters said they haven't run these exercises for years 👍
shareYes. I was expecting that. That's the only reason I gave it eight out of ten instead of ten. As Chekhov once said:, "If a gun is shown in Act One, it must be fired in Act Three". Dramatically it made no sense tp leave Gary's 'bombshell' hanging. It would have also reinforced the serious point the drama was making, fallacious or not, that such political scenarios were slippery slopes. It is possible to imagine another drama where a diplomatic solution was arrived at, but that wasn't the purpose of this particular drama, which was to show the effect of group inertia in ostensibly democratic situations, leading inevitably to the suspension of democracy.
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