It’s sort of ironic that two movies dealing with the threat of nuclear war came out this weekend: Salt and Countdown to Zero.
Salt deals with it in a comic book fashion, a great escape from the heat of summer. Salt is great because it has Angelina Jolie in one of her best action performances making our world safe for democracy. You got to love Hollywood’s answer: send in the winsome beauty to kick Russian ass.
The reality is far more grim. The truth, as outlined by Lucy Walker’s informative, unforgettable doc, Countdown to Zero, is that there are still way too many nukes out there to make our world safe for anything. The most immediate threat, apparently, are the nukes in Pakistan, since that’s where Bin Laden and Al Qaeda reside. Only a lunatic would attack America with a nuclear weapon. It’s like throwing a rock at a grizzly bear.
One thing I’ve been noticing about the generations following my own is that people don’t much worry about nukes anymore. When I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s and even the ’80s, it was all about nuclear weaponry. The threat was real and the fear was palpable. But after the end of the Cold War, the downing of the Berlin wall, and after we were hit not by a nuclear bomb but by resourceful terrorists with box cutters using our own planes as bombs. Perhaps that is part of the reason why no one really fears a nuclear attack the way they should.
At the beginning of Countdown to Zero, Valerie Plame Wilson says that Al Qaeda is motivated to acquire a nuclear weapon. It is really only a matter of money. And that is only a matter of time. The question isn’t if, but when. Probably we who live in the bigger cities are under the larger threat but the point is, we live with this threat every day. And most of us don’t even realize it.
That makes Countdown to Zero the most important documentary you will see all year.
It doesn’t even matter if it’s good or not, though it is good. What matters is that this information, this palpable fear, needs to be spread like a virus until we are all aware of the threat so that maybe we can use our might as a people (ie, unplug from the tit of distraction and start taking action) to stop it.
Social tagging: Countdown to Zero
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