An older movie, this time; tonight during dinner, I decided to watch 1979's
The China Syndrome again; without a doubt one of the best thrillers in my collection, with
Coma by Robin Cook and Michael Crighton right with it.
The China Syndrome tells the story of an accident in a nuclear power plant, the lies and deceipt that led to the accident and the lengths people will go to pretend it never happened.
While doing a series of documentaries on alternative energy sources (remember, this is the seventies we're talking about; the oil crises of 1973 and 1979 made it very clear that the world needed to invest into alternative power sources, just so we don't have to rely on fossile fuels as much as we did in the previous years), reporter Kimberly Wells and her camera crew are witness to an accident at the nuclear power plant they're filming that day. Wells is determined to go public with the incident but it soon becomes apparent that this secret is not something you can publicise that easily.
The China Syndrome is a very impressive film, and despite the somewhat dated decors and technical stuff, it's still current.
One of the things that made the movie quite controversial, was the
Three Mile Island-incident just twelve days after the movie was released in theaters; the incidents in the movie were mirrored by those at TMI.
The acting is superb; especially the characters played by Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon are memorable characters. The film has a monaural sound track; the only speaker that actually did something, was my center (and no, simulating the other channels would spoil it). ;) There is no real need for surround simulation; there are no scenes that need surround and the movie has enough suspense to stand on its own.
It has no musical sound track as such either, by the way; every piece of music played during the film, was played through TV, radio or a juke box.
There are numerous good thrillers out there; all of them providing good entertainment, good acting and such. The thing that makes The China Syndrome different, is that the occurrences depicted are still possible, despite the movie's age. I'm not against nuclear power, as it's a relatively safe and clean means of generating power. But films like The China Syndrome keep us on our toes and remind us of what may happen when things go
pearshaped for real.
And that's why I'm recommending this movie wholeheartedly.
Cheers, K.