Review

Abstract

Certain subjects go beyond form. They're so big that anything but the most self-denying treatment might seem rude and presumptuous, and therefore our respect for them must express itself as simply and directly as possible. The nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of course, have that awesome magnitude, as does the holocaust in Europe. When those subjects come up in conversation or in art, they have the power to silence us, to make us try to comprehend the most profound horrors we have created and experienced. Just a few minutes into John Junkerman's film, artist Toshi Maruki says quite directly that we are in hell, and the rest of the film chronicles the attempt that the Marukis, wife and husband artists, have made to get out of it.