Living: On Silence, Speech and Witness after Hiroshima

Abstract

This submission is a review of the ethnographic film, The Day the Sun Fell, by Aya Domenig (director and author).  The review explores both the substance and the ethnographic narrative strategy of this film.  The work is addressed as an intimate ethnography of survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, as explored by the director/author whose late grandfather was a survivor, conducted with the close cooperation and involvement of her grandmother.  The work presents an interactive exploration of historic film footage of the bombing and its aftermath together with commentary and recollection by survivors.  During the course of the filming, the Fukushima nuclear disaster occurred and the frame of the film was expanded to address nuclear radiation more widely.  This review engages the film’s themes of living with, speaking of and witnessing nuclear bombing/disaster as a challenge in thinking about how to live in the present.