The Beautiful farce known as Legacy

Gone are the days to expect a new Christopher Nolan movie with high anticipation, awaiting for yet another wave of inevitable praise to what undoubtedly will be yet another undisputed mind-bending masterpiece.

Many are the reasons for such, the more obvious being the world now coming to admit how unquestionably overhyped Nolan often got, or maybe how bolder he began to vary ever since Interstellar onwards (and for the arguable better), or how all his signature tricks have become text-book known by the audience – the fast dialogues, the big great eloquent inspirational speeches interspersed with scenes within the context or dissolved, in an ultra dynamic montage accompanied by the evocative near uninterrupted filled with synthesizers soundtrack by either Hans Zimmer or his new brilliant substitute Ludwig Göransson; all of which are still fully present here.

Everything that helped fed and increased the number of his haters and detractors, never mind how the pandemic affected his relationship with Warner Bros. out of how badly handled the release of Tenet was. All that suggests that his once prestige, now hangs by a thread to the point that Oppenheimer, his newest and most ambitious project to date, seemed like a risky and defining bet, not only for Nolan's career, but for what his cinema represents: original-adult driven blockbusters, the likes of which get extinct by the day, and like it or not, only Nolan seems to get the green light to direct and bring to life in films that arguably become modern classics in the sense of how integral part of pop culture they have slowly become.

Is very early to say if Oppenheimer will have that sort of weight in comparison to his last outings, specially getting released in a week and year where Barbieheimer have taken over screening rooms all over the world and everyone seems more promptly ready to deliver the billion dollar box-office to Greta Gerwig and her feminist manifesto than a film about a historical figure around a troubled straight white man, that some have already declared to be an unnecessary and dangerous film for our times in greasy comments that seem to want a few likes on the tweet; but that will never diminish the fact that this is Nolan at his most mature resounding and truly masterful!

The heavy dialogue-driven biopic drama, exploring a complex web of historical context richness of a documental work, unraveled with the snappy agile pacing that jumps backwards and forwards in time interchangeably covered in epic and micro scopes of rich detailed character study; is basically Nolan making his JFK mashed with The Social Network while bringing back to life the detailed epic immersion of The Right Stuff and old classic biopics in general. The once called 'adult material' that Spielberg got recognized for his now "mature phase" when Schindler’s List came along, is what Oppenheimer feels exactly for Nolan!

The director is quite known for being able to achieve synthesis through editing, conducting multiple narrative blocks almost at the same time, letting image and words dictate and encompass heavy loaded amount of information. While that in his previous films was to sell complex concepts of his ludicrous premises in didactic expository jabbering, this here is used to encompass the entire political and historical context surrounding Oppenheimer’s life. Very verbose but surprisingly never didactic or overexplanatory (quite subdued for Nolan parameters), tackling with near four different decades of histories and events all wrapped up in one single narrative logic that forms a cohesive functional structure.

Going through the expected jumping off point from the ‘following the early days to the rise and fall’ biography structure which might seem quite conventionally, despite the constantly jumping back and forth non-linear narrative that one might judge Nolan for trying to over-complicate things and disguise it as artistic flourishes. But Nolan fills the entire three-hour runtime with justified layers and facts that explores near-obsessively the major key stances of Oppenheimer’s known political and personal life.

All while detailing the creation and development of the first atomic bomb, followed by devoting the entire last hour to the political aftermath of the Manhattan project, exactly where the movie takes the shapes of a political thriller and a courtroom drama in yet another one of his cinephile wet dream. Plus juggling at being a semi-autobiographical character study, a surreal Lynch-worth horror-fever dream, a big metaphor for film creation, and a… Western?! Resulting in a commercial blockbuster with disturbing implications, an abstract surreal experience, sexual perverted innuendos, a haunting atmosphere of sorrow and a depressed downbeat journey of an endless martyrdom. It’s quite spectacular!

Thus amidst so much chaotic dynamics of infused imagery of nightmare converging with reality, past and future convolving to one another, ‘Fusion’ and ‘Fission’, one under the colored limelight, and the other a stripped-off documental high-contrast black-and-white; reaching near expressionistic sensorial levels with Nolan’s technical experimentations of language and visual formats that jump between the surreal, the epic and the dirty intimacy almost colliding into one another subsequently and constantly.

The well orchestrated chaos is Nolan’s main work here and he commits to it! Though while in Tenet saw Nolan throwing all the elements concepts and his visual/musical ode to see what comes out in the other side in what stands as perhaps the most expensive experimental movie to date; the director’s vices and technical obsessions are in Oppenheimer all used in benefit of the subject matter, the title character and his worldview shrouded in visions of chaos and drowning guilt.

Unable to grasp the stable control of life itself because against all his vast knowledge of quantum physics and the abstract laws that govern our living cells, none of this will be enough to understand the complexity of what it is to be human and deal with his place in this world beyond seeking a path of more knowledge, more recognition, and that maybe it will never be enough to suffice the endless haunting turmoil living inside of us forever. This was perhaps as true of Oppenheimer himself as it is of his author's realization here, making for a historical case-study of arguably the most morally questionable figure of an entire generation, creating a tale of how one pursues that place in history and how the same can get crushed it under its weight.

A peculiar character that fits like a glove under Nolan’s signature elements that finds him here at his most honest and explicit, no longer having to hide it anymore, making Oppenheimer yet another one of his trademark tormented professional protagonist sunk into work as his life's obsession and his personal curse; surrounded with the obsessions with the theoretical knowledge technicality and mechanisms, both which together echo a recovering of Nolan’s The Prestige days in a very similar story of ambitious fixations and to challenge the boundaries of scientific theories, and the integral moral quadroons of such.

Nolan would obviously make a kind of indirect autobiography with a figure as peculiar as Robert Oppenheimer, since he sees himself in the man: the addictive fixation with work; the troubled responsibility with the family met the perverted psychosexual subtexts with complex relationship with women; the daydreams and fascination with the quantum, philosophical and symbolic texture of all the forces, sciences and philosophies that dictate the actions and dynamics of being, existing and realizing our reality; the sense of friendship brotherhood being the sole motor force to be trusted any resounding confidence and encouragement to continue, but also surfer the hardest blow.

One can call it ego-maniac to the point that Nolan might be seeing himself as a underappreciated genius, that just like Oppenheimer, share the struggles of having to confront the pettiness of his superiors to allow his work to be made; while having his political stance constantly questioned throughout his life and career for always having shown himself as someone politically diffuse; and with the Manhattan project being presented and process almost mirroring of a big expensive movie production, with the assembling of his crew, financiers and cast members, the ones that support him and those that question him every step of the way.

But I actually see it in a way that Nolan finds earnestly to humanize such figure, not glorify nor defend his actions; rather understand him amidst the man’s own trouble complexities. Having to search for crooked paths to meet his dreams, seeking after the laurels and the glory, moved by vanity and inexplicable personal obsessions to be recognized in some way, or rather, unable to control his fear and yearning to achieve a legacy he himself fears will be worth it.

Is Nolan quite directly offering a deconstruction of ‘the Great Man’ figure, the tall of the tribe archetypes, the stories of great visionaries whose unique vision of the world may alter the course of our very way of life, forever marking their name in history and how that history bends to the whims of an individual struggling with the weight of his work and the consequences of his legacy; and lay bare the arrogance within that very idea as an intrinsic American literally thing.

Then is no wonder that Nolan plays exactly with Western iconography here, the foundational myth and romanticized notion of the individuals that shape history by sheer will: with the vast deserts, horses, small arid towns and their hero leaders wearing top hats, camping in the wilderness; and illustrating the flawed veins running inside of that with rich sense of novelty. Even going as far to reach biblical proportions by being a movie that literally begins with a forbidden fruit, has a hidden serpent, the nightmarish vision of sin and a protagonist becoming a public martyr, denounced by his disciples (and how it brilliantly matches that with factual accounts of Oppenheimer’s life) – life, myth and history converge in one epic amalgam of a disturbing suffrage!

If Oppenheimer’s legacy was to be the father of the ultimate weapon of mass destruction ever known, destruction seen as a creation entity, is something Nolan can relate, that all around his career have self-proclaimed to be a director who dispenses as much digital effects as possible in favor of tactile palpable textures. He paid the price for that in the form of criticisms and as we saw in Tenet, a slight fall from grace of ego, but to the title character, was a forever stained merit.

The first bomb test sequence must go for the ages as a quiet harrowing contemplation of a an unleashed force of nature, created by a man that for a moment felt himself like a god than return to his grounded insignificant human self in face of a seismic sight of a world-changing event released upon earth and forever changing its course. Prometheus was tortured for all eternity for giving mankind fire, while Oppenheimer was only neglected to have any shred of pride or honor about his work or legacy, you can decide which will ultimately reflects as the more painful.

Oppenheimer being a man that reads and studies the likes of Picasso, T. S. Eliot's “The Waste Land,” or Das Kapital, has an understanding that they are all perhaps expressions of the same shifting understanding of the universe: not a single truth, nor single version, much like the Strauss and Oppenheimer narrative classes and intertwined points of view is the very incarnation of the idea of subjectivity getting narrative shape, at times through sheer psychological horror lenses.

A specific scene involving a suicide carries a morbid and gruesome weight at the mere suggestion raised by a glove clutching the victim's head. It's so brief that at first one might think they've seen things. But after the film it becomes clear, the character's own delirium is real, plunging into paranoia, almost wanting to blame his mistakes on others who persecute him, unable to process the weight of what’s to come, of what he can only hear about – the Hiroshima and Nagasaki are never show, but whose horror is felt; or be bluntly accused off directly, or by the visions that invade his mind.

That desperate seeking of holding a grasp of understanding the chaotic invisible fibers that govern our world, the universe held together by invisible strings becomes a feverish deep motto of his life, even before his reality becomes a living nightmare of guilt. And if Sheldon Cooper taught me anything beyond BAZINGA, is that string theory is not a science of absolute certainty, but of probability. Chaos is the only truth that will define and mark men's history, arbitrary and random motions, competing and contradictory beyond the control or at service of the greatness of a man.

One clever mind than me can analyze how Oppenheimer attributes its storytelling structure to the very understanding of theory of relativity raised by Albert Einstein (brilliantly played here Tom Conti), the difference between theory and practice and the moral weight between intentions and results, being used to form a character study of a deeply contradictory figure, facing a dilemma without choices. Would it be out of egocentric vanity wanting to leave his name under the creation, or an intention of national self-preservation, of a greater good impossible to be achieved and avoid the greater damage that such a creation could cause?!

The answers and definitions towards Oppenheimer the character and man remain as cryptic and blurry as he was. Ultimately, all nations and men can race to get ahead, but victory will remain an illusory distance, the costs of achieving our obsessions and dreams will be the tolls that will shape history, while the price to be paid will be a lover’s life ruined, a wife soaking in buried dreams, being an absent father for his kids, and millions of thousands innocent life shredded by radiation.

Is a man’s error as well a power outcome laid in the very imperialistic foundations and its effects on the world, seen how the faith of millions of people being decided by the push of a button or the personal calls of a bureaucrat that won't explode Kyoto because he spent his honeymoon there, but Hiroshima oh that's a necessary evil; unsettling realization to say the least.

While the last realization left by Nolan’s “blockbuster”, is that we weren’t watching a biopic and rather the slow tearing self-destruction of a soul and mind succumbing to time and its merciless reformulations, reflected in the despair of a face. If for years Nolan used IMAX to evoke scale and spectacle in his quest to achieve a taste of modern spectacle worthy of David Lean, here he follows the lesson of John Cassavetes and makes the greatest location in the world, the human face, reaching humanity trapped and desolate, telling you everything that endless dialogues will never be able to conjure up.

Making the dead eyes expressions laid in the distraught beaten ghost pallid face of Cillian Murphy his own version of Maria Falconetti in Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc. Along with the physical inflections and fragile body sees Murphy putting all his talents on the table and delivering his best yet, finally under Nolan’s helming in their recurring working partnership that I hope doesn’t stop from here, in what is arguably the best acted movie of Nolan’s entire filmography.

Is quite astonishing to see, especially in such a central character-focused movie, how EVERY SINGLE BIG NAME STAR from this behemoth cast of top bill actors working today, gets at least one scene to show their due talent. It echoes those packed-cast films like Judgment at Nuremberg or again Stone’s JFK itself, and better used than the entire cast of Mallick’s The Thin Red Line! Some in particular that filled my heart with joy were as follows:

- Seeing Alden Ehrenreich and Josh Hartnett in very prominent roles among the supporting faces made me open a smile from ear to ear, hell, even freaking David Krumholtz shows up in a very assured performance stand out role;

- Raimi Malek has literally only one scene with dialogue and single handedly delivers a better performance than in the entireties of Bohemian Rhapsody and No Time to Die;

- Very pleasing to see Dane DeHaan back in a highlight role that puts his dramatic chops to work, even if playing pure scum;

- Casey Affleck has mere minutes and leaves a shivering impression;

- Matt Damon is hugely likeable in a gruff good nature ass-hole mode;

- Florence Pugh more and more showing why she’s a drama queen to be reckon with;

- And FINALLY Emily Blunt put in a Oscar-worthy role that can cause both disgust to complete emotional catharsis by the end;

- Robert Downey Jr. is staggering scene-stealer to say the least, in what’s quite arguably the best acting he ever delivered, or at least the best ever since Chaplin, delivering a Strauss with fragile ego and a crude cruelness very humanly credible;

- Others such as Benny Safdie, Kenneth Branagh, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Matthew Modine, I loved them all!

Oppenheimer is defined at one point as someone of ‘real importance’, who has actual meaningful significance to the balance of the world. So he did it, he managed to launch his name in history… and what did it actually cost for such to happen…?! That empty dead cold interior silence left as a response for such question is exactly the feeling left by Nolan’s fever dream sensorial mind-bending guilt-trip of the empty rewards laid behind achieving success when life and history are as nature itself, juggernaut forces that don’t care about our little ants complexities.

No matter how close to god in power we may get to the weapons we create, we only feed more to history to succumb and evolve to an unavoidable encounter with reckoning with the only value our legacy will leave behind: their consequences, and all those we leave behind it along with it. It’s cyclical, epic and emotionally interiorized; messy and yet coordinated human spectacle. It will leave you empty in dead cold silence but weirdly wanting more of it as it won’t leave your mind any time soon, and that’s the work only great filmmakers can pull off!