Saw On the Beach, a film about the nuclear apocalypse. It's fairly well thought out. It's set in Australia which, due to winds and currents and so forth, is the last to be hit by the nuclear fallout. Horses and bicycles are the main methods of transportation, now that gasoline is impractical. Everyone spends their time getting drunk and partying, alternating this with wallowing in soul-crushing despair. There's a lot less rape and murder going on than I would imagine, but this film was made in the 50s, so there's a lot more charitable dignity given to society.
Unfortunately, that's sort of the main weakness of the film. Lacking any of the spectacle of a world falling apart, we are left with the clenched jaw of Gregory Peck hunting for traces of hope and urging us to behave with dignity. As all apocalypse films are (or at least all of the ones I've seen,) this film is really about existential despair. All of human history is ending soon. What do you do? The answer, of course, is to seek out some human contact and affection before the end. Nothing too surprising here, although one character hysterically ignores the coming doom until she is cavalierly drugged into an appropriately submissive state by doctors. Which was a bit bracing.
I didn't think much of this film, but then I was not in the mood for quiet dignity. For a sorta-sci-fi it's very well thought out and seems very accurate. It portrays society as a bit more genteel than we now believe ourselves to be (and to have been,) but this is the weakness of the 50s. Very grim, but in a low-key, understated way. More sorrowful than horrific. Not a bad film, all in all, just one I was not in the mood for.
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