Chernobyl Heart

I just saw this for the second time and it is a truly haunting film. Only about 45 minutes long, I have watched it on HBO once and then recorded it to show to my husband later. It filled me with such sadness and shock that I just had to share the experience. I had no idea that the effects of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in 1986 were so devastating and so long lasting. It seems to be that this whole situation and condition of this area is kept rather under wraps and silent. If everybody knew about these people and their lives now, I would hope more could and would be done to help. If you want to be informed, touched and moved very deeply, please watch this documentary.

I am Ukrainian and have been a past member on mission trips to Ukraine to visit orphanages that house children living with the after-effects of the Chornobyl Nuclear Accident. I have been there, I have seen with my own eyes what these children look like. When seeing the children in the film, I was reminded of orphans that I've dealt with. The documentary accurately shows the conditions these children live in and the disabilities they live with. They have large tumors, thyroid cancer, heart anomalies, cerebral palsy, and many more disabilities. Having been in two asylums very similar to the ones shown in the documentary,I hope the only reason for making this documentary was to ask for help from those watching. I've seen firsthand how these children respond to visitors. Even those that are bedridden smile or giggle when you touch them or hold them. Those that are mobile constantly have their arms outstretched for you to pick them up. Though they have disabilities, they no more of what it means to love than "normal" people do. Hopefully, for their sake, people will watch this film and be inspired to help!!! It doesn't take much to make a difference.

The Chernobyl reactor itself is seen briefly, and from a distance, to give you an idea of what this documentary is about. Some senior citizens living in the area are interviewed, and the rest of the time is spent in orphanages and hospitals in nearby Belarus, as radiation seems to take the greatest toll on growing or developing bodies. In line with another HBO documentary I've seen, Hacking Democracy, Chernobyl Heart does not have the production values of a HBO television series.

If you are easily disturbed by seeing deformities from radiation then it might be better to give this a miss, but even so it shows the disaster that has befallen Belarus (of which Chernobyl borders), which does not have enough funding of its healthcare system to handle all the victims. "Chernobyl Heart" is the name for a hole in the heart condition and the crew visit an American surgeon who repairs this condition with a $300 heart valve patch which Belarus can only afford a limited number of.

It says a lot for the ignorance of mainstream film culture that this Academy Award Winning Doc Short has generated only three user comments on IMDb and zero external comments. Has anybody seen this film?

It is also bothersome in a way that the film is in HBO distribution because of the context of exploitative fare HBO deals in---all the sex documentaries Sheila Nevins puts out. And then this, sandwiched in-between.

The imagery is beyond exploitative; it so far over the line and yet obviously true. You could find these birth defects almost everywhere in the world but only in isolation. Here, they are in terrible concentration and the kids are suffering in terrible conditions in terrible state hospitals, mental wards and orphanages. All you Ronald Reagan boosting Americans who think 'freedom' won the day, 'won' the Cold War, look at what you have reduced Russia and its sister states to, just look at this and think what massive Lies you grew up under in the 1970's and 1980's and what they have brought about and become.

The next Chernobyl might be caused by internal terrorism in the US, but it will likely be, as the film says, Chernobyl itself. 97% of the radiation is still concentrated there, says the film.

If I seem angry it is from watching the film, the fallout, pardon the ugly metaphor, from the film. Why this is not a full-length film I do not understand. Why are their no officials interviewed, why is there no government response and responsibility? Why is no one from the UN interviewed? Why is the scope so small? Because the film telescopes to discuss the living conditions and medical defects only, it is 40 minutes of nothing but suffering and the small attempts to curtail it, to fix one problem, the 'Chernobyl Heart' defect that seems so tiny a victory in its symbolism.

It is one of the hardest and most necessary pieces of film I've ever watched. But the content is far too important to be compressed into such a painful frame, so stripped of context.

Think of how much the world could change if all the major TV networks in the world agreed to show this in prime time, simultaneously, without commercials.

When I was growing up in the hippiefied 70's, all the grade seven kids in my school were made to watch "Do You Love This Planet?". (Somehow, I don't think it was on the curriculum.) The most lasting, and sensible, propaganda experiment of my childhood. It stuck. There is no reason for this film not be similarly shown.

This film is certainly a testament to the power of images. I defy anyone to watch this and not feel the pain of the children featured. Sadly, though, its shock value is not matched by actually bothering to substantiate its case.

The use of those tragically deformed children may have great emotional impact, but the documentary didn't bother to actually provide any evidence that their deformities were the fault of Chernobyl. That's because there isn't any, or for that matter any evidence that the level of birth defects has gone up in affected regions (with the exception of babies of pregnant women who actually worked on the cleanup at the time). A further claim was that the infant mortality rate was "three times that of the rest of Europe". This is true, as far as it goes. But the IMR is no higher than Belarus's post-soviet neighbors, and can be explained by the declining standard of living and quality of medical facilities.

I could go on, but just about every other claim made in the documentary is either misleading, strongly disputed in the scientific literature (I made the effort to check after watching the documentary), or plain bogus.

If you're a film student, this film is indeed technically brilliant. But it's based on a complete and utter distortion of the real picture.