By Fiona Lamond

Atomic Mom is a documentary recording the emotional history felt by two generations of women from two families – Emiko Okada and her daughter in Japan, and Pauline and her daughter M.T. Silvia in America – affected by the atomic bomb. Filmmaker M. T. Silvia takes the audience on a deeply personal journey and repeatedly exposes her mother’s misappropriated guilt.

The cinematography is a mixture of professionally set-up shots of interviews interspersed with American-produced footage from the ’40s and ’50s of emergency procedures for a bombing and recordings of animals being led to slaughter for the sake of atomic testing. Although animals weren’t harmed in the making of this movie, they were harmed; this film shows us the results not only with footage of test subjects and experiment records but also by Pauline’s retelling.  The constant descriptions of ‘thermal injuries” performed on the animals are deeply emotional and peak when Pauline breaks down.

This is not a documentary about World War II, as  M.T. Silvia made sure to emphasize in a Skype interview after the showing, as well as during the film itself by embracing subtlety at certain points.  This tact was exemplified in the juxtaposition of the two ground zeros – Hiroshima, Japan and the Nevada Desert; contrast never overtly addressed by the film’s narration.  Silvia’s related, self-penned lyrics have also been tactfully removed, but ‘Truth Be Told” is available to download on her website.

Vox rating: VVV – MAKE THE MATINEE