MovieChat Forums > When the Wind Blows (1988) Discussion > 'We'll collect the rainwater!' [THUNDERC...

'We'll collect the rainwater!' [THUNDERCLAP]

posted 12 years ago by foebane72
3 replies | jump to latest

To me, this scene in the film where they're outside the cottage and it starts raining and they're thinking they can collect the water for drinking and general usage always struck me as the "death knell", the "death warrant" for them, as signified by the loud thunderclap the moment the idea is uttered.

I always figured that if they had stayed in the "inner core" or "refuge", then they would've lasted a while longer. But it was their idea of collecting the radioactive fallout-saturated rainwater that ultimately did them in sooner.

Anyone else think this way?

www.foebane.co.uk

[–] rosarypliers 12 years ago

Would it have made a difference? I think you are meant to think: This must have been in one of these pamphlets: Don't drink rain water after a nuclear impact. But two seconds later you realize, that not drinking the water would mean death, too.

[–] WarpedRecord 12 years ago

Basically, everything they did would have meant death for them — getting out of the shelter (which probably didn't protect them anyway), trying to turn on the stove and faucet, walking outside, drinking the water. Really, I think they were pretty much walking corpses once the bomb hit, so it probably didn't matter much.

[–] scottieweiss 11 years ago

Foe, I think you're right that the thunder signified their doom; I see it as more of a sign that *any* plan they made was doomed than a comment on the folly of rain-drinking specifically.