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Oliver Stone

Release date to be confirmed

AFTER the release of Frankie Fenton’s documentary Atomic Hope earlier this year, another non-fiction film supporting nuclear energy is about to hit our screens. In Nuclear Now, which recently premiered at the Venice Film Festival with the title Nuclear, director Oliver Stone trumpets his message loud and clear: renewable energy isn’t going to save us from global warming, and nuclear power is the only way to meet the world’s growing energy demand.

Stone’s thesis is based on the ideas of Joshua Goldstein and Staffan Qvist, taken from their book A Bright Future: How some countries have solved climate change and the rest can follow. While we obviously need to reflect on whether nuclear power is a viable option in the effort to halt climate change, the director chooses the worst possible language with which to make his case, talking down to viewers and repeating ad nauseam how “totally safe” and “clean” nuclear power is. His patronising “voice of God” narration accompanies the film’s extensive stock footage, which is interspersed with his visits to nuclear plants, the talking heads of several pro-nuclear experts and the overwhelming presence of Vangelis’s bombastic score.

Commendably, Stone doesn’t deny the important role of renewable energy in reducing carbon emissions, but he stresses that it can’t be our only way out. His explanation for why renewable energy solutions – in particular solar and wind – use too much surface area to be our sole power source is spot on, and is perhaps one of his strongest arguments.

What affects the film’s credibility, however, is its lack of contrasting authoritative voices. There is basically no dialogue and no confrontation, with every opponent treated as corrupt and backed by the fossil-fuel lobby. The disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima are reduced to small, exceptional emergencies, especially when compared with the destruction caused by oil spills or gas explosions. Again, Stone is right, but he overlooks the proven health and safety risks of radioactive waste.

Nuclear Now is a demonstration of how pushing a message too hard can fail to compel viewers and risks disengaging them. A less partisan approach from Stone – and perhaps a bit more modesty – would have been beneficial to his cause, as would seeing his audience as people in charge of their own brains, not a classroom to be lectured.

Davide Abbatescianni is a film critic based in Rome, Italy