Abstract:

"This compelling and beautifully crafted film reveals the effects of United States nuclear testing on the inhabitants of the Marshall Islands, tiny atolls in the mid-Pacific. The film combines declassified U.S. Defense Department archival footage of the Bravo Nuclear Test with contemporary interviews of the people of Rongelap. At least five hundred times more powerful than earlier tests, Bravo was detonated at Bikini on March 1, 1954. Inexplicably, the islanders living on Rongelap and Utirik Atolls were not evacuated as they had been in previous tests, even though Navy ships were vailable nearby. Fallout covered the ground two inches deep and children played excitedly in this first "snow" they had ever seen. Officials claimed that it was all a mistake, resulting from last-minute shifts in wind patterns. The evidence gathered in Half-Life presents a restrained but chilling picture of a cynical radiation experiment on a human population whose welfare had been assigned to the United States at the close of World War II. With terrifying calm, the film examines the facts leading up to the Bravo test, the role of the United States government in Marshall Islands nuclear testing and the long-term consequences of Bravo. In a sense, the Marshall Islanders are the first victims of World War III. The parable of Half-Life is a true one that haunts our past, present, and future." Winner First Peace Prize, 1986 Berlin Film Festival Director's Award for Extraordinary Achievement, U.S. Film Festival 1986