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Humans, Who Once Buried Their Treasures, Now Bury Their Dangers
By A. O. SCOTT
I am tempted to call “Into Eternity” the most interesting documentary, and one of the most disturbing films, of the year so far, but such a pronouncement, always dubious in early February, seems especially absurd in this case. The film, directed by Michael Madsen — a Danish Conceptual artist, not the American tough-guy actor — takes an unusually long view. Mr. Madsen’s ruminative, even-toned narration is directed not at present-day critics but at viewers who may happen upon this visual artifact at some remote date in the future, as much as 100,000 years from now.
This almost unimaginable perspective is demanded by the subject of “Into Eternity,” a Finnish nuclear waste storage site called Onkalo. The name means “hiding place,” and it has been designed to keep hazardous radioactive material out of reach for as long as it remains dangerous. A series of tunnels and vaults deep in the northern forests, Onkalo, nowhere near completed, is a remarkable feat of engineering and also a daunting philosophical problem. Mr. Madsen’s camera captures the eerie grandeur of the physical structure as it is blasted and carved into the rock, and also the debates it has occasioned among a group of sober, thoughtful scientists, theologians and policy makers.
These arguments are at once eminently practical and wildly speculative. One basic and obvious question is how the dangers of Onkalo are to be communicated to future generations. The complexity of this problem comes into focus when you consider that whatever messages are left behind must be deciphered a thousand centuries hence, many times more than the span of recorded human history so far. The pyramids in Egypt, which offer a plausible analogy in terms of scale and longevity, are not even 5,000 years old, and ancient hieroglyphic warnings to leave them alone have been ignored even when they have been understood.
Who or what will even be around when the danger of the spent fuel stashed at Onkalo finally lapses? Intelligent robots? Highly evolved molds and fungi? Some kind of alien life form for which plutonium is a source of nutrition? As one of Mr. Madsen’s interview subjects notes, most science fiction looks ahead only a hundred years or so, and thus is not terribly helpful.
Is there a universal symbol that connotes danger? Will markings on the ground, elaborate diagrams or reproductions of “The Scream” by Edvard Munch be effective in keeping future curiosity-seekers at bay? Or is the better solution — suggested by some of the thinkers and researchers and frowned upon as unethical by others — to leave no sign or trace at all, and hope that what our descendants don’t know won’t hurt them.
Thousands of tons of radioactive waste are produced in the generation of nuclear power, and “Into Eternity” takes a somewhat guilty view of this activity. Mr. Madsen marvels at the heedlessness and hubris of a species that can, in serving its own immediate needs, imperil life on the planet for many generations to come. And while nothing said in his film undercuts this worry, the way the movie and the people in it express their concern gives it a feeling of sublimity unusual in most environmentalist documentaries.
There is something apocalyptically awful about Onkalo, to be sure, but the impulse behind it is noble, and the installation itself has an undeniable grandeur. That theologians, engineers, ethicists and bureaucrats spend so much time and effort trying to protect the distant future from the consequences of present folly speaks rather well of our current civilization, or at least that sector of it devoted to clear thinking and rational problem solving.
But the fact of Onkalo points in the direction of mystery and paradox. If it lasts as long as it is supposed to — and every precaution is being taken to fortify it against earthquakes, political chaos and the ice age predicted in 60 millenniums or so — this enormous feat of engineering may well be the only thing that survives us. It may, in other words, constitute the whole of the human legacy for a long, post-human time to come. And this will be especially true, and especially fitting, if the place is forgotten and never found.
INTO ETERNITY
Opens on Wednesday in Manhattan.
Written and directed by Michael Madsen; director of photography, Heikki Farm; edited by Daniel Dencik and Stefan Sundlof; produced by Lise Lense-Moller; released by International Film Circuit. At Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village. In English, Finnish and Swedish, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes. This film is not rated.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/02/02...2into.html?hpw
By A. O. SCOTT
I am tempted to call “Into Eternity” the most interesting documentary, and one of the most disturbing films, of the year so far, but such a pronouncement, always dubious in early February, seems especially absurd in this case. The film, directed by Michael Madsen — a Danish Conceptual artist, not the American tough-guy actor — takes an unusually long view. Mr. Madsen’s ruminative, even-toned narration is directed not at present-day critics but at viewers who may happen upon this visual artifact at some remote date in the future, as much as 100,000 years from now.
This almost unimaginable perspective is demanded by the subject of “Into Eternity,” a Finnish nuclear waste storage site called Onkalo. The name means “hiding place,” and it has been designed to keep hazardous radioactive material out of reach for as long as it remains dangerous. A series of tunnels and vaults deep in the northern forests, Onkalo, nowhere near completed, is a remarkable feat of engineering and also a daunting philosophical problem. Mr. Madsen’s camera captures the eerie grandeur of the physical structure as it is blasted and carved into the rock, and also the debates it has occasioned among a group of sober, thoughtful scientists, theologians and policy makers.
These arguments are at once eminently practical and wildly speculative. One basic and obvious question is how the dangers of Onkalo are to be communicated to future generations. The complexity of this problem comes into focus when you consider that whatever messages are left behind must be deciphered a thousand centuries hence, many times more than the span of recorded human history so far. The pyramids in Egypt, which offer a plausible analogy in terms of scale and longevity, are not even 5,000 years old, and ancient hieroglyphic warnings to leave them alone have been ignored even when they have been understood.
Who or what will even be around when the danger of the spent fuel stashed at Onkalo finally lapses? Intelligent robots? Highly evolved molds and fungi? Some kind of alien life form for which plutonium is a source of nutrition? As one of Mr. Madsen’s interview subjects notes, most science fiction looks ahead only a hundred years or so, and thus is not terribly helpful.
Is there a universal symbol that connotes danger? Will markings on the ground, elaborate diagrams or reproductions of “The Scream” by Edvard Munch be effective in keeping future curiosity-seekers at bay? Or is the better solution — suggested by some of the thinkers and researchers and frowned upon as unethical by others — to leave no sign or trace at all, and hope that what our descendants don’t know won’t hurt them.
Thousands of tons of radioactive waste are produced in the generation of nuclear power, and “Into Eternity” takes a somewhat guilty view of this activity. Mr. Madsen marvels at the heedlessness and hubris of a species that can, in serving its own immediate needs, imperil life on the planet for many generations to come. And while nothing said in his film undercuts this worry, the way the movie and the people in it express their concern gives it a feeling of sublimity unusual in most environmentalist documentaries.
There is something apocalyptically awful about Onkalo, to be sure, but the impulse behind it is noble, and the installation itself has an undeniable grandeur. That theologians, engineers, ethicists and bureaucrats spend so much time and effort trying to protect the distant future from the consequences of present folly speaks rather well of our current civilization, or at least that sector of it devoted to clear thinking and rational problem solving.
But the fact of Onkalo points in the direction of mystery and paradox. If it lasts as long as it is supposed to — and every precaution is being taken to fortify it against earthquakes, political chaos and the ice age predicted in 60 millenniums or so — this enormous feat of engineering may well be the only thing that survives us. It may, in other words, constitute the whole of the human legacy for a long, post-human time to come. And this will be especially true, and especially fitting, if the place is forgotten and never found.
INTO ETERNITY
Opens on Wednesday in Manhattan.
Written and directed by Michael Madsen; director of photography, Heikki Farm; edited by Daniel Dencik and Stefan Sundlof; produced by Lise Lense-Moller; released by International Film Circuit. At Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village. In English, Finnish and Swedish, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes. This film is not rated.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/02/02...2into.html?hpw
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