Into Eternity
Michael Madsen:
Into Eternity (Denmark, Finland, Sweden, 2009)
85 min. - English, Swedish, Finnish - Finnish subtitles
Into Eternity tells a story about the world’s first deep geology repository site for nuclear waste, planned to be situated in Finland. The mine, named Onkalo (a cavern), needs to be designed to work for 100 000 years, a time span incomprehensible for human mind. Onkalo has to be able to withstand wars, natural disasters and future ice ages. How to protect the mine, and the death it contains, from the curious, whoever they may be?
This film, directed by Danish Michael Madsen, is more than just a documentary about nuclear waste. Despite its tangible premise the movie manages to raise even philosophical questions. The researchers designing Onkalo are asked some difficult questions. How can we communicate with the people of the future, thousands of years ahead, when current languages have disappeared? How can we warn them about the invisible danger and death hidden in the seemingly innocent mine? In the past, sacred places have often been announced dangerous, and yet they have been pillaged. How to explain radiation without words?
Into Eternity is partly produced by Finnish Mouka Film. It is a thought-provoking movie that will haunt you long after leaving the cinema. The idea of waste that radiates lethally for 100 000 years is such an evil concept one would imagine it to be just a science fiction fantasy. Still, a new plant producing more of that waste is being built in Finland as we speak. The movie does not give answers, but it proposes some very good questions.
» www.intoeternitythemovie.com
Sat 17th Nov at 6:15pm Tapio 4