Led by a towering (and career-best) performance by Cillian Murphy, “Oppenheimer” stands tall as Christopher Nolan’s most terrifying yet beautiful work. While a couple of wobbles exist in the non-linear narrative structure, the last act seals the deal splendidly. The final line is its most devouring and perturbing.
Christopher Nolan is one of the most sought-out directors of our time. And although I don’t like plenty of his work, Nolan has earned it. He deserves to be at the top of the food chain when it comes to grand IMAX spectacle, whether he’s working on one of his original works (“Inception”) or an IP-drive blockbuster (his “Batman” trilogy). He has the privilege and wiggle room to pursue whichever story he desires. This is a gift for his Box Office magnet filmography. This free-roaming uncontrollability has ended with him delivering both his best (“Dunkirk”) and worst (“Tenet”) features to date. But somehow, even in the latter cases, it demonstrates his creative and visionary ambition. He fuels his mind with the innovation of the craft. It makes us cinema-goers excited about whatever he presents to us at the table.
His latest one, “Oppenheimer,” can be described as an evaluation of a man and his broken and severely bruised persona — the deconstruction of a scientist and his intractable urge for control. Robert J. Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb (or, as called in the film, “the man who moved the Earth”), is the subject of this character study. This movie not only examines the mechanics behind the atomic bomb’s construction but also the fragmentation of the titular scientist’ state of mind pre (and post) Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nolan commits to pick apart the very essence of this man slowly drowning in his morality and urge for control by means of a drama epic that might demand a lot from its audience. But it ends up as the British filmmaker’s most existentially frightening yet ravishing work. To put it in other words, this is his most human.
A Rampaging Fire Introduces Nolan’s Vision
“Oppenheimer” begins with a rampaging fire, the implosion of a bomb — the expression of calamity in element form. Similar to what has been seen in the teaser trailers, an orange-tinted cloud of death bursts onto the screen. A sound effect emerges. It sounds like the wheels of a freight train clanking against the tracks or thousands of people stomping their feet. And with each second that passes, it gets louder and louder. You begin to feel the heat from the fire and smoke; it is almost like a 4D experience. The audience senses these images and all of their might, and your heart is beating rapidly. That may have also been my ever-growing excitement for the movie after such an exhilarating introduction. After a few seconds into the flames of calamity and despair, it sends us to the past. It is a rainy day on the Cambridge campus.
A young Robert J. Oppenheimer (played in all ages by a towering and career-best Cillian Murphy) is woken up early in the morning by his thoughts and theories. Or maybe it was a supernatural message where he saw a vision of his future — shaken up by what he would concoct decades later? Whatever the case, something in his mind keeps him wide awake. These first few seconds may be simple and don’t contain any dialogue. But there’s a dual-meaning image of destruction and creation. It’s like the music and its conductor, a theory put into practice and the scientist behind it, or the anathematized gift and its courier. This develops a titillating feeling. You are on the edge of your seat. We think about the film’s development rather than its outcome, as we all know its ending, the obliteration of the mind, body, and soul.
As we learned early on, Oppenheimer does not want to play with potions at the lab, as stated by Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh), who visited the university for a lecture. Robert is a theorist; he conjures up probabilities and reworking rules to create whatever pops into his mind. Nonetheless, that small talk sets him up for a path of literal and metaphorical obliteration. “Oppenheimer” divides itself into two separate segments: “Fission” and “Fusion.” This narrative device helps orientate the audience in the point of view we are seeing. Fission, the scenes in color, relates to Oppenheimer’s perspective and his thrive for nuclear technology. Nolan provides a mirror of his psyche and emotions. Meanwhile, Fusion, the black and white sequences, has a more objective view of Oppenheimer via the eyes of Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.).
A Classic Hollywood Tapestry with Dread and Angst
What’s most interesting about Christopher Nolan’s latest picture is how he managed to paint the portrait of this historical figure, with all of his achievements and faults presented to us without backing away. Nolan’s vision comes from a place of admiration, while at the same time, he fears for his creation decades later. That’s why Nolan engineered “Oppenheimer” to reflect (and the audience to think) about his contradictions and fixation on his ideas and innovations that ultimately led to those disastrous events. It’s a composed mechanism constructed via the classic Hollywood tapestry of dramatic epics. Yet, with a sense of dread and angst induced by a rapidly changing world.
Each hour centers around a specific period — even though it time-jumps from time to time because of its non-linear narrative (which is the cause of the film’s central issue, its pacing and structure) — as well as his character trait. We see the evolution and degradation of his soul through each theory he presents and practice he pursues. Because of such, “Oppenheimer” always remains with a high level of trepidation and fear, not only from its titular character but also those around him. You get to see the effects in every dynamic these people have with one another as time passes by and progress keeps getting made. While some worry about the new world being born by flame and fury, others just want their hands on the weapon.
The film focuses on making Robert look like a man slowly learning that he’s one of the people to blame for this new world, controlled by those with similar weapons that terminate everything in their sights. The government forces him to help their fight for good versus evil. And an even more grim fate was sealed for those involved. Hence, when Oppenheimer says, “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” you feel an eeriness that gnaws your insides entirely. He realized that the weapon’s use was for unethical means. The tool itself is neutral; the people who use it determine the fate of everyone. This is what makes Oppenheimer Nolan’s most striking and terrifying work to date.
Each vision of the bolstering fire, splitting atoms, and total demise via the presence of a white light adds to that existential experience, becoming more nail-biting than his thrillers and more engrossing than his most lavish action set-pieces. After taking all those enfeebling hours, one remains silent after the credits roll, not knowing what to say. You feel like you are going through the same emotions as the main character. Suppose there was a fault in its cinematic texture outside of the pacing and non-linear structure. In that case, these aforementioned emotions are felt mostly through visionary language rather than by the script itself. That doesn’t mean that the screenplay is lacking on an emotional level. But you are moved more by the visuals and facial expressions than the dialogue itself (with some exceptions aside).
Construction and Deconstruction of Minds and Formats
At least “Oppenheimer” separates itself significantly from Nolan’s filmography. It presents new skills and aptitudes after more than ten films on his back. I would love it if he’d continue to make these types of epic. But I believe he wouldn’t be to do so with another historical figure, at least to this degree. It feels like he was waiting a long time to deliver this film to us. This is noticeable in the construction (and deconstruction) of the cinematic format he loves to use, to the point where theaters that couple play the 70mm IMAX print had to build around it. Ti’s an ever-consuming and revealing loop that never stops.
Nolan has created a picture that worries yet fascinates, intrigues yet keeps us alerted for a possible future. The last scene will leave you on tenterhooks. Murphy’s simple yet towering glance at the camera ravishes the screen entirely. It has an obligation to close the film. You see the face of a man torn apart fully. He’s a person who lives for theories and leaves with more questions than answers. The black screen reflects his soul, now adrift in a sea of distress by his design.
Currently, “Oppenheimer” is only available to watch in theaters.
