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‘Nuclear Savage’ Film Review (Final)

‘Nuclear Savage’ by Adam Horowitz is an excellent film. It depicts what can only be called war crimes by the U.S. committed against Marshall Islanders during nuclear testing in the 1950s. The United States turned the Marshallese people into human guinea pigs. The film left me on the edge of being disgusted to be an American as it explains the blanket of cover-ups the U.S. government told to hide the monstrosities they had committed.

In the Cold War fanatics, the U.S. dropped 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands One of those bombs was 1,000 times more powerful than both dropped in Japan at the end of WWII – the Bravo bombing. Both events at Japan and the Marshall Islands had one thing in common; they left the people in radioactive fallout, ruining their lives and homeland. Children would be born with deformities for centuries, the people wouldn’t be able to return to their homes for years to come, and the people exposed are slowly dying off from various cancers.

The film also highlights the Marshall Islands’ call for help. Rightfully feeling that they were wronged, the country has been seeking reparations to help the sick and dying people due to the fallout. Showing their fight for help really makes you feel for the people of the islands, a great move on Horowitz’s part. Normally with a government exposure exposes, it comes off as a crazy conspiracy theory so I was pleasantly surprised to find that instead, this film just makes you focus on the people first; emphasizing that they’re human like the rest of us. Of course conspiracy can be found in this film though, centering on the planning of the tests.

Secret project 4.1 was originally intended to test radioactive fallout on human beings in the Marshall Islands. The wind pattern “unexpectedly” changed the day of the bombing and caused incredible damage to a few islands. Later documents changed the tittle to add the word ‘accidental’ in it, and although the Marshallese people feel attacked, the United States makes no plans to assist in further recovery.

The film shows that the U.S.’s actions would be considered war crimes if anyone else tried them. Comparing it to the Nazi regime, Horowitz says we can’t see the error in our way. These bombs impacted over 20,000 people and Horowitz grabs our emotions through the one-on-one’s with the Marshallese people re-living the horrors they have been through. One local described the fallout day as a rain of white ash that burned away at the skin. What they didn’t know at the time was that they were just dusted with a radioactive cloud.

Who gives us the right to make those choices, or use these weapons? ‘Nuclear Savage’ answers that question by setting a mistrusted scene featuring the United States – holding the biggest supply of bombs. It seems the Marshall Islands will never receive retribution for the inhumane treatment they faced in nuclear testing.

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Nuclear Savage Film Review.

“Nuclear Savage” a documentary by Adam Horowitz takes the stories of the Marshallese and the tests inflicted upon them by the United States during the cold war. In the documentary Horowitz focuses on several Marshallese people actively trying to get the US to provide further compensation for those affected by radiation as well as for the un-consented participation in Project 4.1, the study of radioactive fallout on humans. Horowitz takes the film from Washington D.C. to Hawaii and the Marshall Islands to tell the story of the testing in the pacific, even going as far as to hound official US personnel for information.

Following the second world war the Marshall Islands was used as the pacific testing grounds for atomic weapons and the spread of radiation was a direct result from testing. After decades of testing the US left the islands as a sovereign country and with only a sparse amount of monetary compensation for any issues to arise due to the testing in the islands and atolls.

After the infamous Bravo Shot in the 1950’s Project 4.1 was initiated to study the effects of radiation of the islanders affected by fallout of the Bravo Shot. For one of the key elements of the documentary project 4.1 was repeated throughout the film until the hearing of it was more like background noise than the key concept of direct effects of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. The constant repetition of Project 4.1 begins to eat away towards Horowitz’s argument on its importance because the more it is repeated the information given about it is still the same as the first time. The focus on Project 4.1 also makes the argument on the detriment to the Marshall Islands from constant testing rendering dozens of atolls and islands unusable by the US as less concise. Focusing on a small cluster of islands affected by the Bravo Shot makes the point lost on the scale of testing done and damage inflicted on the islands that Horowitz tried to portray through his film. Along with the focus on project 4.1 the focus on Bravo Shot that was the initiation of project 4.1 distracts from the 66 other atomic tests done in the Marshall Islands. Horowitz makes the exposure to a single bomb more significant than the constant radioactive exposure of multiple atomic testing over a period of years and makes it seem as if the other tests contributed nothing to the ongoing radio-logical issues of the Marshall Islands.

Horowitz also seemed to make a lapse for the sake of his argument by his own narration and direct involvement in the film by harassing US representatives with trying to get them on film for an interview. The issue itself doesn’t come from the attempts at getting an interview but in Horowitz’s rejection of wanting to talk with the officials which would be fine with talking and having an interview without the camera involved. In refusing the offers for off camera interviews Horowitz biases his argument more by refusing to meet with the representatives.

In the same arm of biasing information declared in the documentary whenever Horowitz is presenting information that he has gathered there is no formal indication of a source for information. This proves to be detrimental when Horowitz begins narrating about secret meeting made by scientists in Los Alamos National Laboratories before the Bravo Shot on project 4.1. The claim that the meetings were held in secret comes hard to believe without a verified source of information to support the bold claim.

Another shortfall of the documentary is the constant usage of stock imaging in awkward and slower parts of the film when narrating something can take away significance of the images. The repetition of certain pieces of film as well take away from the information being given because of having seen the images before with different information can cause confusion when recalling information based on the film itself.

For a documentary at hand Horowitz makes a good attempt. The documentary is in good place as an introductory piece of informative film over what happened in the Marshall Islands. But the focusing on only one project and one bomb of the sixty-seven atomic weapons deployed in the Marshall Islands makes the documentary singular in purpose with project 4.1 as the headline. One last cause for concern over the information that affects the film is the lack thereof of information over the Marshall Islands testing past Bravo Shot.

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Nuclear Savage - Film Review by Alex Banteah

After watching Adam Jonas Horowitz’s documentary titled Nuclear Savage, I came away with a new outlook on how the United States operates and handles their business. This film instills a powerful feeling of anger within its viewers by exposing a cover up of sorts by the United States’ nuclear testing program.

The way this documentary exposes the U.S. is done so by using the victims as a central focus within the film and allowing them to share their personal experiences with the viewers. Horowitz also shares archived footage of the entire process, including the aftermath, in order to show the destruction the testing caused as well as to show how badly the habitants of the Marshall Islands were injured by the hydrogen bomb. With this footage he includes personal footage from his recent trip to the islands for the purpose of revealing how the people are now living despite the destruction of their home island and the harmful effects on their health.

Horowitz also leaves the viewer (if a U.S. citizen) with a feeling of embarrassment by revealing the neglect from the United States and their constant refusal to take part in a simple interview about the subject. He shows this by including footage of numerous attempts to speak with government officials, including the U.S. ambassador to the Marshall Islands, all of which were declined. This specific example of denial is especially upsetting given the fact that it is well-known by some that these tests were supposed to involve the use of humans as test subjects, however, they claim that this was not intentional and was done only by mistake.

Ultimately I would highly recommend this film to those that are interested in the subject of nuclear testing and the ways that it has been done. I found this film interesting because of the nuclear testing involved even though the procedures done to achieve this could be determined morally unjust. I feel like this film does a great job of getting its point across by using historical footage and personal footage by Mr. Horowitz as well as the inclusion of scenes that exposed the once confidential documents about the nuclear testing.

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Nuclear Savage Film Review First Draft

The documentary “Nuclear Savage: The Islands of Secret Project 4.1” is a film that was directed by Adam Jonas Horowitz that uncovers the truth behind the nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands during the Cold War. It took Horowitz five years to make this 86 minute documentary, which was cut down to just 55 minutes by PBS. It was supposed to air on the PBS network on television, but at the last minute it was banned and was never played. I believe this documentary needs to be seen by the public because it provides hard evidence that the government has lied to the public and also the islanders of Marshal Island. It raises the question in my head, what else could the government might be lying about?

This film is one of the most shocking and moving films I have ever seen due to the undeniable evidence Horowitz presents us. The mediums he presents us with vary from stock footage, pictures, and footage he shot himself. They all contribute to the horrifying evidence that the government used the people of the Marshal Islands as test subjects for nuclear exposure. Horowitz gathers footage of interviews with the Marshal Island peoples in which they explain the affects the bomb ‘Bravo’ had on them. There were accounts of one woman's babies looking like ‘a bundle of grapes’ and one that was born without bones as well as one coming out with an overly large head. Accounts also include them being hosed down by a fire engine hose in efforts of washing the radiation off them. The pictures and video displayed images of people who were directly affected by the bright light and wind that burned hotter than fire. They were losing hair that could be literally pulled out of their scalps without effort, they were also losing their pigmentation in their skin. There’s photos of American scientists examining these people, the earliest they starting examining people was two days after the bomb was dropped. This made it seem like the coordinators of the bomb dropping were waiting for the radiation to settle into the environment and the people.

Horowitz made endless efforts to attain information about the bombings. Numerous phone calls were made, and he couldn't get anything although he new the information was there. He had to get congressmen and senators involved to reveal information from different institutions he previously contacted, he knew they were hiding it. Some of the classified documents that he uncovered had been deleted by the government for reasons we can only imagine. There were countless photos of the islanders appearing as mugshots with their name and the name of the project, 4.1. The government claimed the weather report stated that the wind was heading in the opposite direction of the island, but documents of the actual weather report on the day of March 1st, 1954 stated the wind was heading directly for the island. When various government officials were asked about this all they had to say was there was a last second shift in the direction of the wind. Horowitz traveled to many Department of Energy and Department of Defense meetings trying to interview people to possibly get their reasoning for what they did, but everyone didn't want to be interviewed with the camera on. Another piece of substantial evidence was the titles of the documentation before and after the detonation. Before, titles consisted of something like ‘Nuclear radiation testing on human subjects’, but after, they added the word ‘accidental’. This implies that the government was planning on testing nuclear radiation on the people of the Marshal Islands all along.

The United States government already knew what radiation did to people because they sent scientists into Japan after the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings. So if they knew, why would they test ‘Bravo’? Well the answer is they were showing the rest of the world, especially the Soviet Union, just how strong their bombs were and to not mess with them, it was a hidden threat.

In comparison to the Nuremberg Trials, which was when Nazi doctors conducted tests on human subjects, there are no major differences between the two. Consent of what the tests actually were, weren't accurate. The victims were given false information, or the scientists portrayed the outcomes to be positive and weren't clear about what would actually happen to the test subjects. The Nuremberg Trials were unethical experiments in the eyes of many people including the United States, but when the United States does something similar, it’s for our national security or for the sake of science and technology. Doesn’t the U.S.’s point of view seem hypocritical and definitely biased?

I would seriously recommend this film to absolutely anybody. It definitely raises questions about the United States government and what their doing behind closed doors. If they're intentionally lying about ruining people's lives for generations to come, what else are they lying about right in front of our faces. It almost makes other conspiracy theories seem more than likely true. As time goes on we're going to find out.

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Movie Review - Nuclear Savage

I think ‘Nuclear Savage’ by Adam Horowitz is a well done piece of film, mirroring the atrocious war crimes the U.S. committed through nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. The United States turned the Marshallese people into human guinea pigs. The film left me on the edge of being disgusted to be an American as it explains the blanket of cover-ups the U.S. government told to hide the monstrosities they had committed.

In our Cold War fanatics, we dropped 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands, including one that was 1,000 times more powerful than the two dropped in Japan at the end of WWII – the Bravo bombing. The bombings at Japan and the Marshall Islands had one thing in common; they left the people in radioactive fallout, ruining their lives and homeland. Children would be born with deformities for centuries, the people wouldn’t be able to return to their homes for years to come, and the people exposed are slowly dying off from various cancers.

The film argues that if anyone else tried to do what we did, they would be tried with crimes against humanity. We can see the evil in Germany’s acts of using the gas chambers, but can’t recognize our own mistake when we’re impacting thousands. These bombs impacted an upwards of 20,000 people and Horowitz grabs our emotions through the one-on-one’s with the Marshallese people re-living the horrors they have been through. One local described the fallout day as a rain of white ash that burned away at the skin. What they didn’t know at the time was that they were just dusted with a radioactive cloud.

Who gives us the right to make those choices, or use these weapons? ‘Nuclear Savage’ answers that question by setting a mistrusted scene featuring the United States holding the biggest supply of bombs.

#nuclear savage #movie #movie review #review #nuclear #savage #horowitz