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Unstable Elements – Atomic Stories 1939–85 (1985)

Director: Paul Morrison, Andy Metcalf

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From Time Out Film Guide

Two-thirds documentary, one-third dramatic moral exemplar, this traces a new history of the bomb and its domestic spin-offs: the World War II race between the Allies and the Axis to get there first, the complicity of politicians and scientists, the international bullying antics of America (riding to world domination on the back of the bomb), and the fallacy of the 'Atoms for Peace' campaign, portrayed here as a whitewash over a deliberate policy of using nuclear power stations to produce plutonium for the bomb. Using documentary footage, interviews with Manhattan Project scientists and their UK counterparts, excellent montages from Peter Kennard, and interviews with the relatives of dead nuke industry workers, it's a powerful indictment. But the final part - a mystifyingly oblique drama about the human, emotional effect of the nuke industry, based around Sizewell B - presents such an abrupt change as to almost scupper what went before.

Author: JG 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

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Cast & crew

Director: Paul Morrison, Andy Metcalf

Producer: Gillian Slovo

Cast: Donald Sumpter, Caroline Hutchison, Susanna Kleeman, Sam Kolpe, David Henry full cast

Genre(s): Documentaries

Duration: 90 mins


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