Preceded by short: Nagasaki Journey (Chris Beaver, Judy Irving, U.S., 1995). While researching material for Dark Circle, a documentary about nuclear issues, Beaver and Irving came across confiscated footage of Nagasaki shortly after the bombing. They have woven this footage into several criss-crossing stories that offer a rare glimpse of Nagasaki fifty years ago. A fitting companion for Oba's heavily censored film. (27 mins, B&W/Color, 16mm, From the artists) ------------------------------(Nagasaki no kane). In making Bell of Nagasaki, the first Japanese film to address the A-bombings, Oba was forced to omit many crucial scenes when the U.S. Occupation government rejected the first two script synopses. The result is an intriguing, somewhat sentimental melodrama about a Nagasaki radiologist whose early work with X rays had already exposed him to a fatal dose of radiation before the bomb dropped on August 9, 1945. Based on an essay by Dr. Takashi Nagai, the film follows the scientist's conversion to Catholicism amidst the turmoil of the "fifteen year war." Nagai's duty to his wife and children is tempered by his dedication to medical research. The destruction of Nagasaki occurs in the final third of the film and Oba, as required by civil censors, portrays the spirited survivors as they bravely go about rebuilding the city. When the eponymous bell finally peals, it is a hopeful sound, but one cannot disregard an undertone of alarm.-Steve Seid