Atomic People

An interesting and important film recently made available by the BBC, the film tries to put the voices of the Japanese at the centre of it rather than telling it through an allied perspective as we often get. The archive footage contrasts sharply with the modern footage. No real attempt is made to analyse how the bombings contributed to ending the war or what other options there might have been for Truman. Very little mention is made either of the appalling facist system, whatever else this was not a random act of aggrression on a humane and enlightened society which you may forget watching the film. It remains true though that it really is so often the civilians who suffer most terribly in war. The film does not really highlight either the accepted use of "strategic bombing" by all sides during WWII, might survivors of the Tokyo Firestorms have some equally compelling testimony you wonder?

The accounts and some of the photographs make for horrifying viewing, it's really in the detail of the accounts that we discover the true horror which also extends to some of the girls who survived tending to the injured or made to help with the mass cremations. The film moves us forward in time dealing with the lives of those who survived rather than with the rebuilding of the city. The lesser known part at the end tells us about the discrimination and hardship faced by these survivors often at the hands of thrir osn government and people, as well as hearing about the effects the radiation had on their chances for marriage and children. Many of these survivors seem remarkably calm and without anger you do notice, perhaps age helps to soften things..... most of the survivors were children or teenagers when the bombings took place. One account by a survivor just 3 at the time can't really be taken as a first hand account, others may struggle to recall some details now of events from so long ago.

In summary the film achieves its purpose as a haunting account of the survivors, it does not really examine though the causes of it all. No historians feature either. In using first hand eye witness testimony though, albeit with much passage of time, it does relay some powerful accounts. An anti nuclear message also is not so subtly raised at points towards the end too, with a final address to the UN.

I honestly didn't know how to rate this, but I opted for a ten for the following reason.

The stories from the ancient survivors are without a doubt heartbreaking. I won't list them here, there are so many and unbelievable that they are still alive approaching a hundred years old.

What frightens me is that the likes of Putin, Biden/Trump, Iran, China, North Korea, Israel have their fingers on the button. A handful of men with the fate of billions in their hands. We know it's insane but they don't seem to care.

This should be shown to them, forced to make them see what would happen to their people and their country, not to mention themselves. Just because they might had a safe place to ride out the bombs doesn't mean they will have something to come back to.

I have no sympathy for the Japanese people of that time. I understand why they attacked Pearl Harbor, they expected the US to come to the negotiating table, they didn't think they would go to all out war.

To try and play the injured party, which this documentary appears to show, is awful;. The atrocities they enacted on the civilian populations of the countries they invaded and prisoners of war is beyond forgivable.

The invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa cost the lives of over 20,000 Americans and over 250,000 Japanese. If they had mounted an assault on mainland Japan the estimated US casualties were expected to be in excess of 1 million.

They really had no choice.

I reiterate, show this to those with their finger on the button.

The sheer magnitude of the tragedy that unfolded on those fateful days is so big that it simply overwhelms the senses.

It is incredibly difficult, perhaps even impossible to judge the quality of the film making with such an emotive subject but I believe it is done well.

It is a harrowing and poignant in equal measure, but is a story that must be told and one that everyone should hear.

The facts are there and they are presented well, but this is not simply a Wikipedia article on film. The history is presented with such a deeply personal touch that it makes it impossible to resist and it will surely touch all those that view it.

A difficult watch, but a must see.

This documentary is both shocking and heart breaking at the same time. The events which ended WW2 the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just the beginning of events which continue to this day and will do so long after I am gone from this earth.

I sometimes wonder if Truman had invited Hirohito to the USA to witness the test of the atomic bomb and said " I think you should surrender before this is used in a war capacity against your citizens " whether Hirohito would have gone back to his people and surrendered to avoid such a catastophic loss of life.

The Japanese people who suffered after the bombings and continue to suffer to this day MUST be a warning to the world about the power these weapons have to destroy mankind. I also think that Oppenheimer realised what he had done by allowing this to be created. For he had become the destroyer of worlds. His words taken from the scriptures were indeed true.

Sadly Hirohito was proclaimed as a god by the Japanese people and I have no doubt that his ego and position would not have allowed him to show a form of weakness and vulnerability to his people. At such a high cost.

Yet man continues to meddle with nuclear power like he knows what he's doing and disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima are evidence that we simply don't know what we are doing. The documentary has left me with questions and thoughts and worries for the future of mankind. Ultimately the people who survived the bombings are the only people with first hand knowledge of the pain and suffering that has been created.

It is an amazing documentary which gives the truth about the events after the bombings. The politics and control of information to obfuscate the reality is just as terrifying as the events themselves.