A documentary film about Bruno Pontecorvo, reviewed by Tushna Commissariat
Maksimovic: the Story of Bruno Pontecorvo, the 2013 documentary written by Italian theoretical physicist Giuseppe Mussardo, tells the tale of one of the most mysterious physicists of the 20th century. Pontecorvo’s defection to the Soviet Union during the Cold War created a political stir across Europe and the US, thanks to his nuclear expertise. The film traces the tumultuous path from his arrival in Rome in 1931 to join Enrico Fermi, to his fleeing Italy and moving from the US to Canada to the UK before finally going to the Soviet Union in 1950, where he lived until his death in 1993.
Although his disappearance is well documented, Pontecorvo’s true motives are still unclear: was he a spy giving away atomic secrets to Russia or was he truly a loyal socialist? The film includes a variety of historical footage, interviews with many of Pontecorvo’s fellow scientists as well as his son Gil Pontecorvo and also some dramatized scenes of a journalist interviewing a middle-aged Pontecorvo. The documentary is engaging and flows well, but some might find it distracting that the main narrative is in English and the recreated scenes are in Italian, while most of the interviews are in different European languages.
- 2013 Pilgrim Film
