“Trinity”
(USA)
Metacritic (6/10), Imdb.com (6/10)
The horrors of nuclear weapons and nuclear war have provided the foundation for many narrative and documentary films over the years, but few of those offerings have focused specifically on where it all began – and the largely unaddressed Trinity test and the fallout (no pun intended) that came from it. But that’s an oversight that directors Anthony Audi and Martina Car have attempted to correct in this new documentary about the quietly devastating effects to come out of the world’s first nuclear test in the New Mexico desert in July 1945 – and the lasting impact it had on both local residents and the world at large. The film features a series of interviews with first-hand witnesses to the Trinity test and how the explosion affected them, their families, their health and their way of life in the wake of this landmark event, one whose potential dangers they were not informed about in advance and for which they have not received any form of compensation for their losses. In many regards, these individuals can be looked upon as the forgotten victims of the birth of the nuclear age, unwittingly suffering the consequences of the hazards of this technology through no fault of their own other than living in, or downwind from, the wrong place at the wrong time. The film also examines the uranium mining boom that arose in the area after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the US military scrambled to build up its nuclear arsenal, told specifically from the standpoint of how it affected the miners and their families, many of whom came from the neighboring Navajo Nation. The accounts of these experiences are further augmented with clips from archived government propaganda films of the era, movies that touted the alleged merits of this technology and effectively painted over any negatives associated with it. And, in a final insult, the film incorporates a series of quotes from military leaders at the time who observed that the nuclear attacks on Japan likely had little meaningful impact on the eventual outcome of the war, raising questions of whether the bombs should have been dropped in the first place – particularly in light of what has come from their use since then. The impact of these revelations is indeed quite eye-opening, especially given that they’ve received precious little attention over the years – outcomes that have been overlooked as much as those who suffered injuries as a result of the testing. Regrettably, though, as enlightening as these disclosures are, they’re not always presented as deftly as they might have been. Some of the interviews, for example, are quite rambling in nature, presenting dialogues with witnesses who include a little too much extraneous information, speaking to the camera as if viewers are as intimately familiar with what they’re talking about as they are (clearly, better editing and “clean-up” would have helped with this). In addition, the relevance and connections between the archive material and the contemporary interviews aren’t always drawn as clearly as they could have been. There are also several overlong transition sequences between segments featuring high-speed open road footage set to avant-garde electronic music that add virtually nothing to the overall narrative and feel more like padding than anything else, a strange element for inclusion given the film’s relatively short 1:16:00 runtime. Nevertheless, there’s important information to be had here, and that helps to make up for some of these production shortcomings. It’s just a shame that the overall presentation doesn’t quite live up to the level of quality of the insights that the film imparts.