Dark Circle
“One of the strengths of Dark Circle is that it manages to show human faces and telling details that particularize the vaguely horrifying subject of nuclear weaponry. Shot on location near the hydrogen bomb factory in Rocky Flats, Colorado; near the Diablo Valley Nuclear Power Plant in California; and in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Dark Circle also used the Freedom of Information Act to unearth footage the government didn't even know it had. Among the most moving sequences in Dark Circle is a conversation with former Navy pilot Richard McHugh, who was promised an early release from his tour of duty if he would fly through a mushroom cloud. Now afflicted with leukemia, he is battling the government for medical compensation. Rex Haag, who lives near Rocky Flats, quietly and unsentimentally relates that his 10-year-old daughter developed a sore on her leg. She was soon dead of cancer, and her ashes were found to contain plutonium. Blackly ironic relief is provided by a sequence composed of the logos and slogans of the corporations that produce nuclear bombs. (GE: ‘Today, something we do will touch your life.') An unforgettable snippet of government film presents a bizarre experiment in which pigs were dressed in tiny aluminum overcoats to see if they could survive a nuclear blast. They could not.” Shelley Diekman