Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise
The bombing of Hiroshima seventy years ago this month demonstrated the atomic bomb's horrifying destructive potential. Mark Cousins' daring documentary examines not only death in the nuclear age, but also life. The film shows us an impressionistic kaleidoscope of our nuclear times - protest marches, Cold War sabre-rattling, Chernobyl and Fukishima - but also the sublime beauty of the atomic world, and how x-rays and MRI scans have improved human lives - using only archive film and a new musical score by the band Mogwai. The nuclear age has been both a horror and a dream.