Dark Circle
Environmental-minded documentaries are often more informative than emotionally involving. That isn't the case withDark Circle, winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize. Directed by Chris Beaver, Ruth Landy, and Judy Irving (The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill), the POV presentation explores the human cost of nuclear technology without skimping on the science. Irving, who narrates, starts by talking about her relationship to plutonium as a child. In the 1940s, the US government presented atomic power as a means to keep America safe. She thought that was the whole story. A trip to Colorado's Rocky Flats as an adult convinces her that the collateral damage is being downplayed. The filmmakers talk to residents dealing with radiation sickness, like a weapons facility worker with brain cancer, a father who lost his daughter to leukemia, and a farmer with mutated livestock. Then they travel to California's Diablo Canyon and Nagasaki, giving everyone from protestors to designers the chance to have their say. Though the trio keeps the shock tactics to a minimum, some of this material is not for the squeamish, particularly the footage of Japanese citizens injured by radiation exposure and the now-declassified "Priscilla" test of 1957 in which 700 pigs were subjected to an atomic blast (Scientists learned that porcine skin is sturdier than human, but hardly indestructible). Extras includeNagasaki JourneyandHidden Voices: The Final Hours of Karen Silkwood. The entire package aims to provoke--and succeeds.--Kathleen C. Fennessy