A Major Disappointment

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Michael (no not that one) Madsen's fascinating and thought provoking study of the problems of long-term storage of nuclear waste material could be presumed to fall into one of two documentary formats. A: The dry scientific lecture, a-la Horizon, or B: The Michael Moore-style charged polemic. Surprisingly it resembles neither of these so much as it does the stately and poetical science-fiction of Andrei Tarkovsky.Taking as his subject, the huge and potentially world-leading Finnish project to bury their waste in permanent underground storage caverns, the focus of the story swiftly moves on from preliminaries such as the logistics of construction, to the unexpectedly rich philosophical question of how we communicate the meaning and danger of such a place over its unimaginably vast intended lifespan of a hundred-thousand years. Michael frames his entire presentation as a message to some far- flung civilisation, twenty times more removed from our own than we are from those who built the pyramids. Telling the story of how we buried "the fire we could not extinguish" as an eloquent and profoundly moving legend, to be passed down from generation to generation... of the place, as he so beautifully expresses it, that we must always remember to forget.

This rather dull, ponderous and pedestrian documentary from Danish conceptual artist Michael Madsen looks at Onkalo, a massive nuclear waste storage facility being built 500 metres underground in a remote area of Finland. It will comprise of over three miles of tunnels. As nuclear waste needs to be stored somewhere safe for the next 100,000 years, the facility needs to be secure and remain uncompromised by future generations. It is expected that it will be permanently sealed off sometime in the 22nd century. Neither sending it into space or burying it deep under the oceans practical solutions to the problem of nuclear waste. Storage facilities above ground are temporary at best, as the Earth is unstable. Wars, earthquakes, economic depressions, greenhouse effects will have an impact over the centuries. Despite the important subject matter, the ominous warnings sounded and the numerous questions raised, Madsen (who also made the short documentary To Damascus, etc) seems to lack the same sense of urgency as the recent nuclear doco Countdown To Zero. In fact, Masden seems to be addressing his film to future generations, and this gives the material a quasi-science-fiction feel. There are lots of talking head interviews with government officials, scientists, doctors, theologians and specialists in the field of nuclear waste management, but these are fairly dull. The film has been shot on high definition video, and the images are quite crisp and clear, especially when Masden takes his camera deep inside the cavernous site itself. It's a pity that the film itself is rather prosaic, occasionally repetitive, visually unexciting and unimaginative in structure. Also there is a lack of technical information on the details of the construction of this massive project, which would have provided some additional context. Into Eternity would have been better served as a tightly constructed 50 minute documentary which would have been more effective.

I don't believe I am exaggerating when I claim that this is one of the coolest works of film I've ever watched. It's a thought experiment packaged within a brilliantly paced, well directed, and aptly scored documentary. The subject matter is critically important to anyone with half an eye on the distant future, and writer/director Michael Madsen does not fail to put matters into perspective.This won't be for everyone, since it doesn't spoon-feed the viewer easy answers, nor does it cater at all to those with little imagination. But if you like thinking about topics that generally fall only under the scope of the science fiction genre, and you don't mind tackling questions that are both grand and open-ended, then this documentary will be time well spent.

Looking sometimes more like Ridly Scotts Allan than an environmental film this gentle documentary about the vast takes you through a sometimes surreal vogue of discovery. What to do with a substance so toxic it must be hidden for 100,000 years, it must survive war and ice age. Written as a video letter to future generations the direction, conceptual artist and filmmaker Michael Madsen, takes you through a visually stunning and thought provoking journey. This may seem like a dry subject but his understated and sometimes playful approach to the subject draws you in keeping you engaged thought.The film includes interviews with nuclear scientists and government representatives which take you into the strange world of thinking further into the future than we have ever dared to venture before. There is a candid honesty here that may alter your perception about our responsibilities.This haunting film may well become a testimony to our inability to see the real cost of nuclear power yet it remains totally non judgemental thought.