Nuclear Savage Review (Draft)
Nuclear Savage is a documentary produced and directed by Adam Horowitz, a filmmaker who is best known for his films on human-rights. The title, “Nuclear Savage: The Islands of Secret Project 4.1″, says it all. Project 4.1 is the name for the human experiments done to the Marshall Islanders by the United States nuclear testing. There is a lot of controversy around Project 4.1 because the United States claims that the experiments were accidental, they had absolutely no intention on seeing how radiation affected these defenseless Islanders. Adam Horowitz’ documentary goes into detail on why this is not true. Documents and weather reports were found proving that the experiments were not accidental. Bravo was the bomb that did the most damage, it took place in March of 1954. It was 1,000 times bigger than the bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima. Even though the bomb was not directly on the islands where the islanders reside, it was obviously way to close for the size of the bomb.
The film displays a lot of personal moments with the Islanders. The way the Islanders are displayed makes the viewer feel sad for them. The film also makes the viewer see our own Government in a different way. In the film, it recognizes Nazi Germany and how German scientists were testing humans during the holocaust.
This movie has two versions, a long 87 minute move and a separate 56 minute movie. The only difference is that the longer movie has extended scenes. If you have the time and the access to this unique banned (from PBS) documentary go with the shorter 56 minute version. The longer movie lacks importance. Too many scenes are reused. For example, the scene when Horowitz arrived at the Marshall Islands. The islanders gave a “traditional greeting” to Horowitz. The first time the scene was shown in the film it was powerful. It is very interesting how their culture differs from ours dramatically. If a scene is placed one time in the film it seems more significant than if it is repeated three or more times in the film. The viewer feels like they have already seen it before because they have. The film tends to continuously talk about and repeat subjects. In my opinion, there are too many irrelevant scenes about the lady who was one of the spokeswoman at the meetings that took place in favor of the United States and was with the Marshall Islanders. She is constantly repeating the same thing. Horowitz proved his point the first two times that the lady was shown.