handicap, and lose their hair. It is rumored that the lake close to the plant is
populated with monster fish. The novel paints a picture of degeneration that reflects
concerns about the sector. The description of the explosion of the plant reflects both
the destruction of Hiroshima and the Chernobyl accident, “Over more than a
kilometer in circumference, an irradiated graphite storm hit, corroding vegetable,
mineral, and animal alike. The building that housed the families of engineers and
workers had been pulverized. It left the distressing spectacle of a crater containing
rubble magma, covered with a layer of tilled soil” [29]. Sven, a teenager, falls into a
ditch and survives. He returns to his village but finds it has been replaced by a
post-apocalyptic scene: “It was a ghost town that he saw before him” [29].
This image of the apocalypse demonstrates the violence of the technique, which
some authors interpret as a form of transcendence. Viewers of the sarcophagus of
Chernobyl are seized by a “holy terror” [30]. This sacredness is represented as a
nightmarish vision in Mount Fuji in Red [31]. This short film begins with an outline
of Mount Fuji, which has begun to erupt. Below, people flee in panic. Balls of
flames shooting into a scarlet sky, rise behind the volcano. Nuclear power plants
explode in succession, triggering huge fireballs. The awakening of Mount Fuji, the
sacred mountain of the archipelago, causes a chain reaction that is a punishment for
the hubris of mankind. The sequence, linking the cataclysm to spirituality, is a
representation of divine punishment that is both specific (the volcano is revered by
the Japanese) and universal (the myth of the end of the world). The use of religious
symbolism and variations on the myth of the Apocalypse reflect an extreme situation in the sense that Eliade understands as “what mankind discovers by understanding its place in the Universe” [32]. The representation highlights the appetite
for technology in modern societies and the powerlessness of mankind in the face of
the forces it has unleashed.
3.2 A Representational Crisis
The Chernobyl accident can be compared to the Holocaust or Hiroshima in the
sense that it marked the start of a new world, “The world of Chernobyl, the product
of technoscience, appears to have made all cultural resources mobilized in such
situations obsolete: it becomes impossible to use such a system of representation,
analogy or experience to understand this world that has become so alien to
mankind, denatured and unrecognizable, while at the same time, familiar” [26].
The use of color quickly proved decisive in circumventing the problem of the
‘impossible representation’. In Mount Fuji in Red, the explosion of plants produces
red and purple clouds of radioactive particles. A survivor explains this strange
phenomenon, “Human stupidity is boundless. Radioactivity is invisible, while
technology has been developed that colors it when it spreads in the air” [31]. In this
case, the discourse links the nuclear industry to an industry that is as dangerous as it
is counterproductive. The use of color is seen again in the film The Land of Hope
[33]. At the same time as an accident occurs in the Nagashima plant (a contraction
144
A. Portelli
populated with monster fish. The novel paints a picture of degeneration that reflects
concerns about the sector. The description of the explosion of the plant reflects both
the destruction of Hiroshima and the Chernobyl accident, “Over more than a
kilometer in circumference, an irradiated graphite storm hit, corroding vegetable,
mineral, and animal alike. The building that housed the families of engineers and
workers had been pulverized. It left the distressing spectacle of a crater containing
rubble magma, covered with a layer of tilled soil” [29]. Sven, a teenager, falls into a
ditch and survives. He returns to his village but finds it has been replaced by a
post-apocalyptic scene: “It was a ghost town that he saw before him” [29].
This image of the apocalypse demonstrates the violence of the technique, which
some authors interpret as a form of transcendence. Viewers of the sarcophagus of
Chernobyl are seized by a “holy terror” [30]. This sacredness is represented as a
nightmarish vision in Mount Fuji in Red [31]. This short film begins with an outline
of Mount Fuji, which has begun to erupt. Below, people flee in panic. Balls of
flames shooting into a scarlet sky, rise behind the volcano. Nuclear power plants
explode in succession, triggering huge fireballs. The awakening of Mount Fuji, the
sacred mountain of the archipelago, causes a chain reaction that is a punishment for
the hubris of mankind. The sequence, linking the cataclysm to spirituality, is a
representation of divine punishment that is both specific (the volcano is revered by
the Japanese) and universal (the myth of the end of the world). The use of religious
symbolism and variations on the myth of the Apocalypse reflect an extreme situation in the sense that Eliade understands as “what mankind discovers by understanding its place in the Universe” [32]. The representation highlights the appetite
for technology in modern societies and the powerlessness of mankind in the face of
the forces it has unleashed.
3.2 A Representational Crisis
The Chernobyl accident can be compared to the Holocaust or Hiroshima in the
sense that it marked the start of a new world, “The world of Chernobyl, the product
of technoscience, appears to have made all cultural resources mobilized in such
situations obsolete: it becomes impossible to use such a system of representation,
analogy or experience to understand this world that has become so alien to
mankind, denatured and unrecognizable, while at the same time, familiar” [26].
The use of color quickly proved decisive in circumventing the problem of the
‘impossible representation’. In Mount Fuji in Red, the explosion of plants produces
red and purple clouds of radioactive particles. A survivor explains this strange
phenomenon, “Human stupidity is boundless. Radioactivity is invisible, while
technology has been developed that colors it when it spreads in the air” [31]. In this
case, the discourse links the nuclear industry to an industry that is as dangerous as it
is counterproductive. The use of color is seen again in the film The Land of Hope
[33]. At the same time as an accident occurs in the Nagashima plant (a contraction
144
A. Portelli