The Ultimate Wish: Ending the Nuclear Age

Taking on an immense topic in a compact, emotional documentary, filmmaker Robert Richter draws parallels between the earthquake-related 2011 nuclear power plant meltdown at Fukushima, Japan, and the targeted A-bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The camera follows 77-year-old Nagasaki survivor Sakue Shimohira, one of the dwindling number of eyewitnesses/victims, who visits schools in the West, informing students of the horrors of the attack, subsequent health ailments, and Japanese social ostracism of the atomic wounded—pathologies that drove her elder sister to suicide. Nuclear weapons now belong to such potentially unstable nations as Pakistan and North Korea, although a few countries (South Africa, Ukraine) are hailed for dismantling their arsenals. Ongoing reliance on nuclear power, meanwhile, presents terrorists and warlords with potential opportunities for obtaining plutonium and radioactive waste poisons. Lumping warheads in with the nuclear-power industry makes for an all-or-nothing tone here, but it's all in keeping with the film's uncompromising anti-nuke stance. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)