Managed to miss it for many years

Rating: 8/10 (15 October 2008)

Growing up in the peace movement, I'd heard of this film more or less before I'd ever been to the cinema (and certainly before I went to the cinema and actually *enjoyed* it, an event which didn't take place until I was in my late teens!) I must have missed seeing it at least half a dozen times and probably more; it used to turn up regularly at CND events to be shown to audiences of the faithful, but at that age films just didn't interest me and the very ubiquity of this one was in itself off-putting.
When it turned up on the big screen at the National Film Theatre, I felt I really ought to take the opportunity to see it for once, but having heard it lauded more or less throughout my entire life my hopes were frankly pretty low; I was expecting another "Citizen Kane" disappointment. (It is very hard for a film to live up to its reputation when the reputation is sky-high and everybody knows 'the best bits' before they've even seen it...)
But on the contrary, I was very impressed. Dr Strangelove himself is a bit too broad for me, but the balance of paranoia and lunacy is otherwise perfect, and there is a lot of genuine tension as well. When the film starts off we have no means of knowing what is actually going on -- the significance of Plan R, the General's state of mind. It is only gradually that it even becomes apparent what is happening, which make the impact all the greater.
I suspect those who say that this is not a comedy but a satire are largely correct; there was laughter in the auditorium, but it was often laughter of shock/disbelief ("Did he *really* just say that?") rather than a straight comic response. And the film ended in a stunned silence (with nervous giggles, again, at the bald caption "THE END") rather than in laughter or applause, although I think the audience had appreciated it. For a film that has been criticized as consisting almost entirely of dialogue -- not that there is anything wrong with that -- it contains a lot of subtle visual gags to pick up that are never mentioned by the characters, from the barely-visible nameplate captioning the General on his first appearance as "Jack D. Ripper" to the prominent signs on the airbase asserting in true sloganeering style that "Peace is our Business".
This picture has the oncoming horror/fascination of watching a comedian walk towards a bobby-trapped door or a suspended bucket of water, coupled with the wild insanity factor of the Goons. It has a serious political message -- not so much specifically anti-nuclear as against the madness of assuming infallibility. It has, of course, Peter Sellers playing multiple roles (although if I hadn't been warned in advance I certainly wouldn't have noticed this!) It has some inspired sets -- I gather that Pentagon visitors still ask to see the 'War Room' that only ever existed on an English sound-stage -- and sly camera angles. While, I'm not always a fan of either Kubrick or Sellers, both do brilliant work here. I find Strangelove himself just *too* strange (and peripheral) to be convincing (he is visibly over the top from the moment that we first see him, whereas the others are on the face of it normal) but the rest of the film is breathtakingly balanced between utterly bizarre and worryingly familiar behaviour; if it's a satire of anything, it's above all a satire on the incredible petty-mindedness of the human race.