THE CONQUEROR: HOLLYWOOD FALLOUT transcends just being a film about a film and instead becomes a damning portrait of the dangers of radiation and the guilt of the American government in poisoning their population. You need to see this.
The film is nominally a portrait of the making of the infamous film THE CONQUEROR which was shot on locations that were irradiated by nuclear tests. As a result pretty much everyone who was on location eventually died from cancer or a disease that is helped along by radiation. Along the way we get a history of the studio system, Howard Hughes and nuclear tests.
I loved this film. I love that the film grabs us and just drags us along. When it ended I was shocked that it had been almost two hours, time flew. It flew because the construction of the film is so perfect. Director William Nunez tells things in the perfect order, telling us what we need to know or answering our questions at the exact right moment. Our minds are never allowed to wander.
The best thing about the film is that it makes the atomic poisoning of most of America accessible to people who wouldn’t look at documentary on the subject. Recently there have been a couple of great docs on the subject (DOWNWIND for example), and most people I know wouldn’t bother with them. At the same time if I told them about this film they would line up to watch the film as soon as they could- a film on a notorious Hollywood disaster, they would be there in a second. They would never notice that they were going to get a lesson on the dangers we were gifted by the US Government that is actually a perfect condensation of those other films.
This is great filmmaking.
Highly recommended.
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