“Conner bases his film on government footage of the first underwater A-bomb test, July 25, 1946, at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. Recorded at speeds ranging from normal to super slow motion, the same explosion is seen 27 different times—from the air, from boats and land-based cameras; distant and close-up. The opening segment emphasizes the awesome grandeur of the explosion—the destructiveness, as well as the dramatic spectacle and beauty. As the repetition builds, however, the explosion is gradually removed from the realm of historic phenomena, assuming the dimensions of a universal, cosmic force. And in the film’s second section this force is brought into a kind of cosmic harmony, part of the lyrically indifferent ebb and flow of life that one sees in a lingering, elegiac view of the ocean.” Original music by Patrick Gleeson and Terry Riley. —Thomas Albright, San Francisco Chronicle