In other hands, a film of such unadorned fatalism might seem useless, an exercise in emotional sadism. But “Testament” isn’t punishing, exactly. It’s frank, intimate, poetic in its elisions and profoundly haunting in its effect.

Originally produced for PBS’s American Playhouse, Lynne Littman’s Testament is one of that program’s standout entries, a vision of nuclear apocalypse whose horrors are felt rather than seen.

There's nothing impersonal about this movie. Nothing unbelievable, either, if you believe the human animal has a core of righteousness that can shine like a sun when everything else has been lost.

There is a fantastic intimacy to Testament, one that separates it from its contemporaries. The rural setting and geographical distance from any explosions create an eerily quiet and more insidious apocalypse.