“It is time to finally accept that the entire history of humanity is a story of prolonged suicide by creatures who were given the ability to think by a cosmic accident and did not know what to do with this randomly lethal ability. (Period.) And I couldn’t find a better use for it; Like creating the most effective methods of total suicide. (Period.),” remarked the hero of Alexander Sabinin in Konstantin Lopushansky’s post-apocalyptic film “Letters from a Dead Man”, released in 1986 at the end of the Cold War, almost simultaneously with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster power plant (cosmic accident Author Arkady Strugatsky, whose brother Boris had a hand in the script for “Letters,” called Lopushansky’s film “a smart and brutal drama about modern people in a situation where they have to use all the strength of humanity, excluding them from history.” Fiction: almost 40 Years later, we still need this kind of “smart and brutal” drama, as humanity never bothered to use its full power.
“Oppenheimer”, the biography of Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb”, continues this cinematic line with sparkle, as they say. Christopher Nolan has long been compared to Stanley Kubrick; from the very beginning (“Inception”) seemed like a questionable path heading in the wrong direction, but it’s really hard not to here: Nolan has sort of taken up the mantle of “Doctor.” Strangelove” leaned into the chthonic overtones of The Shining rather than just dark satire filled with gallows humor. Wikipedia describes the Oppenheimer genre as “epic biographical thriller,” and that’s generally true, but not 100 percent accurate. At a critical moment, the film turns into horror, there is no other way to call it: it almost literally gives you the opportunity to look directly into hell, and there is no eschatological pleasure that Sergei Shnurov described with smug enthusiasm a few years ago. In an interview with Yuri Dudu (known in the Russian media – foreign agent), of course there is no smell there. There is only absolute, all-consuming fear.
Atlas Entertainment
Overall, the term “smart, hard-hitting drama” seems like a radical understatement. This is a completely unforgiving and excruciating film that overwhelms the viewer several times with its brutality (people prone to increased anxiety and panic attacks should be on the alert). The well-known Nolan noise here finally not only reaches the desired frequency, but also fills all frequencies in general. It makes you nauseous: It feels like someone is grabbing you by the throat and keeping you like a dead trap for three hours, sometimes saying “come and see”.
“Oppenheimer” is also one of those films that reminds you in principle why and why you love cinema as a phenomenon. People often complain about the lack of such things anymore; So they don’t film something like this anymore like they used to. And it turns out they filmed it.
A still from the movie “Oppenheimer” (2023)
Universal Studios
“Oppenheimer” makes such a strong impact that there is no desire to delve into its fascinating gears, lest one be intimidated by the magic that exists (when performed by a film critic, this phrase is akin to shooting oneself in the foot, but honesty comes first). The following phrase can’t even be called a meme due to its stereotypical nature, so here it is “Wolf!” You can’t even trust the type of kid who shouts, but as mentioned above, honesty comes first. So: this time Nolan really is a genius. For a change, there is irrefutable evidence: three-hour biopics, in which Cillian Murphy spends an impressive portion of the running time staring blankly into the abyss (for various reasons), gross no more than a billion dollars at the box office.
One Double feature with “Barbie” You cannot explain such a safe. The meme helped in the beginning, of course (the pairing, by the way, is really successful because, plus or minus, it meets all the needs of the moviegoer: a monumental work for the ages and an ideal summer comedy are great together), but Nolan’s film has clearly reached its current milestone, anyway his own longing. It seems we are faced with a masterpiece: Oppenheimer is not only one of the best films in history, but also one of the most important things ever recorded in the form of a work of art. This is a film without which, unfortunately, it is impossible to imagine us, and even more difficult to understand. Another thing is that you do not want to represent or understand us from now on.
The question of how to stop being afraid and love the bomb is still open (although perhaps the answer to this should be sought not in Nolan, but in the singer SHAMAN).
Source: Gazeta
Brandon Hall is an author at “Social Bites”. He is a cultural aficionado who writes about the latest news and developments in the world of art, literature, music, and more. With a passion for the arts and a deep understanding of cultural trends, Brandon provides engaging and thought-provoking articles that keep his readers informed and up-to-date on the latest happenings in the cultural world.