The budget of a film has nothing to do with the analysis of a film. However, it is impossible to talk about the films that Christopher Nolan currently produces and ignore that he is the only filmmaker to whom “the great powers” still grant this kind of resources for a film that is not a sequel nor does it have characters with striking names and costumes. And it's even more impossible to ignore when the director himself tries so hard to draw our attention to the making of it. In this sense, his most recent film Oppenheimeris no different.
That budgetary freedom to fulfill his every practical filmmaking impulse – notably, Nolan refuses to use computer-generated imagery – has led him to produce some of the most spectacular and visually striking sequences in recent history. The spectacle and narrative labyrinths have always been at the center of the British filmmaker's work.
To tell the real-life story of J Robert Oppenheimer – the physicist who developed the first nuclear bomb – Nolan's task was complicated, because not having the freedom to invent his own twists and outcomes, the show and the labyrinth would have to come from somewhere else. In Oppenheimer, the spectacle is in the tormented faces of his characters and the labyrinth in the unstable perspective from which the story is told.
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The film's narrative follows, on the one hand, Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and his work as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the town built in the New Mexico desert where the bomb was first developed (and detonated). This entire section, including his tumultuous relationship with his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) and his mistress (Florence Pugh) is filmed in color and represents the scientist's subjective view. We don't know if things happened that way, but that's how he lived them (or that's how Nolan assumes he lived them).
The second part of the film is in black and white (IMAX literally invented material with these characteristics at the request of the director) and tells the most objective parts of the story: the events as they happened. When we understand this division, the contradictions and paradoxes of this historical chapter that so fascinated Nolan begin to clarify.
Some viewers may be disappointed (if not tired, after its three-hour running time) with the lack of traditional summer spectacle and a story that is more interested in making us think and raising questions than actually following a plot as in the that we have become accustomed to in commercial Hollywood. However, beyond his crusade to save the cinematic experience in a theater, credit must be given to Nolan for trying to stretch his abilities as a storyteller.
If anything has been criticized throughout his career, it is the superficiality of his characters. Almost all of them act as drivers of the plot, like figures created specifically to navigate the labyrinth that the filmmaker created for them. We have the clearest example in the last tape of him, Tenetin which John David Washington's character didn't even bother to name him.
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Unlike the characters in his previous films, Oppenheimer's motivations do not respond to what the film's plot needs of him and in fact they are constantly a mystery. For the first time, Nolan attempts to approach character study and directs his fascination with cinematic spectacle to the words and faces of his main cast. Although the impressive panoramas of the desert are there and the explosion at the center of the film is, without a doubt, a marvel to witness, in reality his interest was in portraying the subtleties of human behavior under a microscope and projecting them on an overwhelming scale.
However, in terms of the script, the filmmaker actually does very little to come close to that exploration. The weight and responsibility of this character study then falls on Cillian Murphy. The Irishman does an extraordinary job of portraying someone whose mind and thoughts torment him almost as much as they inspire him. Overall the film is populated with some of the best actors and actresses Hollywood has right now: Robert Downey, Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Casey Affleck, Kenneth Branagh and Gary Oldman.
Everyone gladly jumped at the opportunity to work with one of the best craftsmen in current cinema. Even if the role only required a few lines of dialogue, as is the case with Oscar winner Rami Malek. And on the face of each of them – especially on the 16-meter-high IMAX screen – falls the responsibility of making us guess what makes them do what they do.
Oppenheimer, the film, is undoubtedly a spectacle of behavior worthy of admiration. And it's one that leaves us with the kind of questions about intentions, regrets and motivations that any film worth its salt leaves us with. It's impossible to know if Nolan has any answers or just wanted us to wonder the same thing he did. In the end, the film is thoughtful, has striking visuals and leaves us with the task of discussing morality, causality and that question that has plagued humanity in its apparent search for peace… does the end really justify the means?
Where to see Oppenheimer?
Oppenheimer It is available for purchase or rent in the digital stores of Apple TV, Prime Video, Claro Video, Google Play and YouTube.
J. Ivan Morales Writer, film director and editorial director at this, your friendly neighbor film publication, Cine PREMIERE. He will never give up hope for a second season of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Firefly.