With a five-star cast, “Oppenheimer”, the twelfth and new feature film by Christophan Nolan, will be in cinemas this Wednesday. A dense work about the complex and terrifying fate of the father of the atomic bomb.
While Greta Gerwig’s ‘Barbie’ hits theaters this Wednesday, July 19 and sees couple Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in a candy-pink kitsch universe, it’s in a very different atmosphere, much darker and more terrifying that the director Christopher Nolan with his twelfth and new feature film “Oppenheimer”.
After the unsettling ‘Tenet’, which left many of his fans stranded on the side of the road tired of not always understanding the time labyrinths hinted at in the film, the British-American director ventures into a completely different register by making a period film writes – and politically – thrillers about the father of the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967).
intertwined temporalities
For three hours without a break, the one to whom we owe “Inception”, “Interstellar” or “Dunkirk” takes on the challenge of directing the biography “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner. A mission accomplished thanks to the nuanced acting of Cillian Murphy (“Peaky Blinders”), who slips into the shoes of the American scientist who finds this brilliant but ambivalent man he himself was overwhelmed ( and manipulated?) by the use that the great of this world made of his invention. A “Prometheus” to the administration.
This is the narrative trend chosen by Christopher Nolan, who paints a portrait of this brilliant physicist, focusing mainly on the “Manhattan Project” that he created to end the Second World War, but also and in particular on the consequences of its creation in 2010, in the midst of the Cold War in America in the grip of McCarthyism. Based on Ludwig Göransson’s powerful and ubiquitous music, which heightens the tension between two visions, radiation and falling ash, the filmmaker weaves together different epochs and other temporalities (his trademark), playing with ellipses and codes – a biopic. He doesn’t particularly dwell on childhood, perhaps brushes aside certain family events a little too quickly, and is more interested in the hero’s psyche than in supporting characters.
An introspective thriller set in Imax with breathtaking realism
At the center of this exciting and twisting story is the research of Robert Oppenheimer and famous explorers and soldiers, all of whom worked secretly in the Los Alamos desert of New Mexico to develop the atomic bomb. A race against time to advance the Nazis. If according to some this weapon of destruction was a real feat that ushered the world into a new era, it also claimed the deaths of more than 200,000 people in the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan on August 6 and 9, 1945. Robert Oppenheimer will not get away scot-free and, in his opinion, will become “Death, the destroyer of worlds”.
From hero to pariah before being redeemed by John Fitzgerald Kennedy, he later advocated international control of nuclear energy and opposed development of the hydrogen bomb. Serious allegations were made against him, Robert Oppenheimer was accused of being a traitor and a communist. As in a trial film, Christopher Nolan dwells at length on these hearing scenes before a committee in which the ethics of science are questioned. The change from color to black and white in IMAX emphasizes the perspective of the protagonist and his opponents. A well-crafted and extremely demanding “Nolanian” staging that at times takes precedence over emotions but manages to take us towards a spooky finale.
a scathing critique of America and power
A total immersion that we also owe to old-fashioned special effects, without digital special effects, especially to recreate Trinity, the code name for the American army’s nuclear tests in July 1945. This desire remains the most close to reality reflecting the danger of these millions of moving atoms . The feature film is an exploration of human madness and an introspective work from which we emerge not entirely unscathed.
Faced with Cillian Murphy as an elusive “Oppie”, Emily Blunt as Kitty Oppenheimer, Matt Damon as General Leslie Groves who oversees the making of the bomb, or even Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, the scientist and lover of the physicist deliver explosive performances. As for Robert Downey Jr., trading in his Iron Man costume for Lewis Strauss, he gets one of the finest roles of his career.
“Oppenheimer” sheds light on issues, fears and moral dilemmas surrounding contemporary issues as the nuclear threat in the war between Russia and Ukraine has resurfaced. During a recent meeting with the press in Paris, Christopher Nolan also insisted on recalling that Robert Oppenheimer’s story was “a warning” to humanity.
“The advent of new technologies happens all the time in our lives and often with fear of what it might lead to. (…) The atomic bomb is the ultimate expression of science, something essentially positive with ultimately negative consequences,” he confided.