As you will no doubt have noticed, it is quite warm out. Historically warm, in fact. By the end of the week it is likely that the UK will have seen its warmest June day since records began. The Met Office has issued a red warning, recommending that people stay out of the sun entirely. Which sounds an awful lot like code for “stay inside and watch films.”
But which films? It seems only right to watch something that reflects this apocalyptic weather somehow. Here are some suggestions:
For those who cannot escape the heat
Do the Right Thing
Spike Lee’s third film uses a Brooklyn heatwave as a pressure cooker, gradually cranking up the tension for the residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant. At first, the characters use the weather as a chance to sit on stoops and hose each other down and flirt, but tempers start to fray as it becomes more oppressive and everybody starts to act on their worst impulses. This week in a nutshell.
Body Heat
If it’s pure uncomfortable stickiness you’re after, you need Body Heat. Lawrence Kasdan’s erotic noir is set during a Florida heatwave so tangibly swampy that it could peel wallpaper at a hundred paces. The weather gets inside William Hurt’s mind, causing a feverish delirium that causes him to fall for Kathleen Turner’s calculated seduction. A near-perfect movie, until you remember how clammy everyone’s genitals must be.
Ice Cold in Alex
This, however, may be my favourite heatwave movie. John Mills leads his second world war Field Ambulance unit across the north African desert, unable to find shelter from the brutal heat. Along the way everything starts to fall apart; exposed to the relentless dust, sweat and glare, people are injured and vehicles break down. It all seems untenable, until Mills reaches a pub at the end of the line and orders the most refreshing beer in cinema history.
For those who don’t want to think about the heat
Fargo
Admittedly, Fargo is a film about an unspeakable act of violence that exposes a peaceful town’s horrifying underbelly. But what you need to remember is that it is a film about an unspeakable act of violence that happens in the snow. Remember snow? Remember what it’s like to need to wear a jumper? Remember when you didn’t have to freeze a bottle of water and shove it between your legs just to feel human? No, me neither.
The Thing
The Thing is a terrifying movie that uses its Antarctic setting to ramp up the fear and paranoia that comes from being stalked and killed by an unknowable creature in the middle of frozen wilderness. However, again, what you’d give for a frozen wilderness this week. Remember being able to breathe in without feeling like your lungs had stuck together like an old pair of pants? Surely we would all take certain death at the hands of a literal monster over this week’s weather if it meant being cold again.
The Holdovers
Actually, we need to be careful here. Alexander Payne’s Christmas film is a thing of beauty. In the cold of the New England winter, where snow is shovelled and breath is visible on the air, a pair of socially awkward outsiders slowly learn how to bond against all odds. It is an intensely heartwarming movie. However, the last thing anyone needs right now is more warmth. There’s a red alert, for crying out loud.
For those who want to see this through to its logical conclusion
Interstellar
Or maybe you’re one of those people who want their films to act as a teachable moment. In that case, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar – in which the world has been ravaged by such systemic climate breakdown that the crops have all failed and humanity is all but extinct – should see you through.
Hell
Where Nolan used the climate emergency to tell a story about the redemptive power of love, the 2011 German film Hell evinces a slightly less optimistic attitude. Here the crops have failed and the atmosphere has been destroyed but, instead of travelling through the stars to find salvation, the survivors in Hell just drive around in a clapped-out Volvo, fighting other scavengers for water and resorting to eating human flesh for sustenance. Essentially what the UK will be if it doesn’t start to cool down next week.
The Day the Earth Caught Fire
In truth, this 1961 British disaster film has very little to do with the climate emergency as we know it. Instead, it is about nuclear proliferation going so awry that the planet breaks free of its orbit and ends up spiralling towards the sun. But still, it’s very good, plus you will look very cool and relevant telling your sweltering colleagues that you’re going home to watch a film called The Day the Earth Caught Fire.
