Countdown to Zero

"There's no doubt in my mind that if terrorists had acquired a nuclear weapon, they would not hesitate to use it." Former CIA covert operations officer Valerie Plame Wilson

Countdown to Zero is as apocalyptic as An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's documentary on global warming: It is fear-mongering enough that it hurts the effort to bring a necessary return to Cold- War thinking.

Countdown to Zero is single minded in its effort to have zero nuclear weapons, of which there are more than 23,000 in the world. When the documentary arrives at calling for a popular movement, by which President Kennedy admitted he was influenced, it loses some credibility. No amount of popular demand will, for instance, change Osama bin Laden's resolve to exact the deaths of millions of Americans should he gain the necessary ingredients. The documentary's point can't be denied: Nuclear proliferation is so possible now that it seems almost impossible to stop it. The sloppy Russian storage of enriched uranium and plutonium is scary. Although over a hundred countries have disavowed nuclear weapons, hundreds like the US and Russia jealously retain them and some sell the theory if not the ingredients.

In a film almost devoid of light moments, the sometimes amusing Boris Yeltsin in 1995 inadvertently showed how serendipity can be a force in our favor. He questioned if the US had launched a missile toward Russia even though his advisors said it had. He prevailed, Russia did not retaliate, and the world discovered that only a scientific rocket had been launched. Whew!

Countdown to Zero makes a manipulative point by showing people in the street calling for zero weapons. Where are those opposed to zero? Most of us agree to a total ban except those security-minded who know deterrence is still a trump card impressive to diplomats and terrorists. While this documentary adds a little to the race to disarm, it lacks the balance a fair documentary should have. But then, Al Gore and Michael Moore haven't been accused of being balanced either, and they both live in nice houses.

Fox News abandoned its balancing act long ago in the face of soaring ratings. Who said life is fair? or balanced?

After a rather boring last few days, I finally got a bit of a shock after watching Lucy Walker's unsettling documentary, Countdown to Zero.

Using the quote "Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, etc." by John F. Kennedy as a structure of storytelling basis, Countdown to Zero explains in an essay-like form of the dangers of nuclear weapons even after decades since the end of the Cold War, and how these could be detonated, intentionally or unintentionally, and blow numbers of the human race off the earth.

Walker explains this in three categories: "Madness" "Accident" and "Miscalculation." Examining the back story of the invention of the A-Bomb by Oppenheimer, to more current events of near catastrophe, she exacts just the right tone that is necessary for the film. While the editing and pacing feels very slow, and a bit choppy at times, as well as slipping a little back into madness every so often, it's nothing if not a brilliant piece of research into this very subject.

It's a very eye opening movie, probably the best example of this, and the best scene of the film, is a hypothetical nuclear explosion taking place in New York City at Times Square after the New Year's Eve countdown, that features a brilliant sound mixture of audio narrations by many of Walker's sources by Michael Minkler and Tony Lamberti, and boy, is it one intense hypothetical.

It's a compelling piece of film making that asks many to help eliminate a major threat, and never becomes sleep inducing.

I give Countdown to Zero *** out of ****

"Every man woman and child, lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment, by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness." John F. Kennedy

This quote taken from a speech by the former US president, forms the basis for the thesis of this bleak, and sometimes alarming documentary on nuclear weaponry. Outlining a history, from the splitting of the atom, to the creation of the a-bomb by Robert Oppenheimer, the film shows the growth of nuclear armament through many countries, many of whom still have today. The film displays the devastation that such a catastrophe could have on world cities (we have seen the images of Hiroshima before). We are told of near-misses due to "mishaps" and calculations that have gone awry, even by the US military throughout the weapons history.

To the general public today, there seems to be no concept of a nuclear threat. A number of people are interviewed on the streets, asking if they feel threatened by an attack of this nature; the majority simply do not feel this threat. Since the cold wars of the 1950's, '60's and 1980's, the concept of nuclear threat has dissipated in the public view. It is no longer a focus of media attention. And yet, whilst the material (Uranium, plutonium) necessary to complete a nuclear weapon is difficult to attain, it is certainly acknowledged that middle-eastern terrorists have absolutely attempted to purchase such raw materials.

Lucy Walker's film uses some fantastic archival footage to paint a picture of the threat to our world that still exists. She managed to employ some highly notable talking heads to maintain integrity in her argument (Mikhail Gorbachev, Tony Blair, Robert McNamara). She manages to highlight how easy it is to smuggle such devastating materials into countries. This is a powerful documentary, however, the threat of such an attack is so limited, that the film seems just too late to create such intrinsic paranoia (I mean, does a scared person, or country - i.e. the backwaters of the USA - really need more to worry about?) The threat just isn't as urgent as, say, in the 1980's when such films posing the question, what if...? where broadcast on television, such as the frightening Threads (1983), made and broadcast by the BBC. It is still a good documentary, with some interesting 'facts', and should certainly be watched by anyone interested in modern history.

www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

While the movie goes into great details about the dangers of nuclear weapons, it neglects to mention an important possible beneficial aspect of them.

There are massive objects traveling in the space called NEO (near-Earth object) which come dangerously close to the Earth from time to time. Then there are those called Earth-Crossers whose orbits actually intersect that of the Earth. Astronomers tell us that a collision with such an object is inevitable some time in the future and it could be catastrophic for all life on our planet.

If such an object is ever spotted coming at us (Jupiter had such an event only a few years ago) then those much-maligned nukes and ICBMs may be the only weapons in our arsenal with which to defend ourselves and we will not have a whole lot of time to manufacture them from scratch if we do not have some already on hand. While it may not be possible (or even desirable) to destroy such an object altogether, its trajectory may be deflected just enough to make it miss the Earth.

Therefore it might be wise for us to think things through before taking any drastic measures for their total elimination.

Remember "An Inconvenient Truth"? Rembember Al Gore, and how climate change became THE hot topic in 2007? Everyone talked about it, they made millions, climate change was even acknowledged and its fight endorsed in the US. Momentum has really been building up lately, for the topic of nuclear disarmament, since the Prague speech by Obama, the Nuclear Posture Review on April 6th, the New START on April 8th, the Nuclear Security Summit on April 12th/13th (biggest gathering of heads of state since the founding of the UN 1945), the NPT RevCon in May and now, starting in June in Cannes, this global movie which is going to raise awareness on a massive scale.

After Al Gore receiving his Nobel Peace Prize for his engagement against global warming, the producers asked themselves, which other topic needed some massive attention by a broader public, and agreed they had to cover the issue of nuclear disarmament (voilà a video-interview of the producers explaining so: HTTP://tinyURL.com/Lawrence-Bander). The movie "Countdown to Zero", by the producer Lawrence Bender, which you are gonna know from movies such as „An Inconvenient Truth", or else almost all of Quentin Tarantino's movies, for that matter, and which UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon warmly lauded for his mobilization of a global public for the cause of climate change is supposed to be doing the very same for disarmament. Go get 'em, boys! Arguably, the timing could not be better. Marketing experts around the world are busy as we speak. The movie will start in Chinese theaters even before the US; also Iran, Egypt, Turkey, as well as Western Europe (the usual suspects) will be served soon, starting with the International Film Festival in Cannes.

Ban Ki-moon and Michael Douglas (UN-messenger for nuclear disarmament) also strongly endorse it. The movie itself carefully approaches the viewer to the topic of imminently possible nuclear annihilation, not scaring people of with details right away, but repeating the important facts to enhance the chances viewers will recall them. The movie loses itself in multiple enumerations of horrible anecdotes, but without getting boring in doing so, as every one of them seems noteworthy. Having gone through the issues of false alarms, easy access to launch-codes, hair-trigger alert, the staggering consequences of even few nuclear weapons detonating and causing a "nuclear winter" (explained in this video by Ira Helfand of Physicians for Social Responsibility, who is also featured in the Movie itself: HTTP://tinyURL.com/Ira-Helfand), an artificial ice age that would likely destroy almost the whole species due to plants not surviving three years of frost..

As to nuclear terrorism, insecure storage is covered, especially in countries such as Pakistan, as well as smuggling from the former Soviet Union, both of which could enable terrorists to blow up a major city changing all perspectives on security and personal freedoms forever. Pretty much detail is also given to just how swiftly a bomb could be made, once the fissile material has been acquired.

All of these dangers then converge into an enthusiastically, pathetically presented appeal to the world and audience to demand and pursue complete disarmament and reach Global Zero. Despite the fact that the connection between the dangers arising from terrorist proliferation and the imperative to disarm is poorly outlined, the movie does make a strong case for an end to the era of nuclear weapons. This will receive massive worldwide attention thanks to the scale on which the production will be advertised. It is only thanks to this hope of broad attention that I can get myself to write this very review in spite of the whopping depressive message conveyed buy this movie.

In case you aren't yet in favor of a world without nukes: Look, if […] you've never changed your mind about something, pinch yourself. You may be dead. - closing sequence

In summary, the movie surely does not provide for an in-depths, differentiated look at the nuclear armament problem, but it does resume its dangers in a rather impressive way. Not touching on the controversial issues such as Israel, Iran, disarmament failures under article VI NPT, it can rather be described as the least common denominator, focusing on the indisputable dangers we face. But sure, why not?