A House Of Dynamite
In this political thriller by Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Point Break), the American government must decide how to respond when a missile of unknown origin is fired at the United States.
In Alaska, the launch of the missile is detected. The news is quickly relayed to the upper echelons of the Department of Defence and reaches the American president. In the White House crisis room, the missile’s trajectory is being tracked and potential targets for retaliation are being mapped out. The drama unfolds in eighteen-minute episodes, repeated from different points of view and different locations. Eighteen minutes is the estimated time between the launch of the nuclear missile from the Pacific Ocean and its expected impact in Chicago.
In Stanley Kubrick’s classic Dr. Strangelove... (1964), nuclear weapons were a source of satire; Kathryn Bigelow uses them to deliver a masterclass in building tension. And she confronts us with an uncomfortable truth: several countries possess enough nuclear weapons to wipe out human civilisation within minutes. Bigelow questions how this can be considered defence when the inevitable outcome is destruction. (mv)