Reflections on Atomic Cafe - Part 1

I mistakenly referred "movie" to an acclaimed classic cult documentary "atomic cafe" couple of times while i was doing my part in our group presentation causing confusion to the audience in the last blogger`s conference. My sincere apologies for causing that confusion. It does not really mean that i lack deep understanding of the documentary but due to time constraint i had to rush through all important points that i had to address and saying "movie" was easy instead of documentary...:) and i realized it was a big blunder !!

I want to share some of the scenes from this documentary and i hope this reflection gives you some idea about important messages the documentary wants to convey.
Firstly, i reckon the documentary was made in response to the policies of the US government of that time ( referring to Reagen Era) and his hostile stance in relation to the so called Evil empire (Soviet Union) he was propagating to the American public.

Interestingly, the documentary has no narration and made it in a way to speak for it self. Newsreels, adverts, other actual footages are cleverly weaved together and gives the viewer a perfect compiled documentary. Furthermore it is very humorous with funny atomic themed music. The following is an excerpt taken from the documentary . I would discuss some of the behaviors in that excerpt and other scenes in coming posts



I hope you enjoyed the music . The following is one of my favorite scenes from the documentary I want to highlight



The scene shows how soldiers were fooled to believe the radiation effects were the least thing that they had to worry about and they were commanded to move towards the blast and if they followed the commands correctly , they would be sound and safe. In the initial part of the documentary they do show some of the images of the radiation effect that killed and injured the people of Hiroshima and this scene becomes more like a satire and when a reporter in a voice over asks the soldier ` did u close your mouth ..` and the soldier replies ` i got a mouthful ` . The actual message it wants to convey in my opinion is that how stupid and misinformed were the generation of that time and questions the current generation and it s level of stupidity and it s naivety.

To be continued...