Guess who waited over a year to get around to writing their review of Oppenheimer and has now largely forgotten the majority of what they wanted to say, but nevertheless feels a compelling urge to remain loyal to their ridiculous commitment to write something about every first-time watch logged on Letterboxd?

👉 This Guy 👈

I went to see Oppenheimer because everyone was going to see Oppenheimer. I did not expect to like Oppenheimer because I largely dislike Nolan. So colour me surprised to have found myself partially on-board with the hype.

Why though? I was consciously aware throughout that the film was long, the non-linear narrative was convoluted, the pacing was hectic, the music incessant, the dialogue inaudible — checkbox after checkbox of classic Nolanisms — and yet, despite this awareness, I wasn't bothered. Far from it, I was glued.

I think a big part of my enjoyment (for lack of a better word) comes down to context. I had recently finished reading a book called City by Clifford D. Simak, which is a sort of fix-up pulp novel from the golden age of science fiction. This was my third read and it took my third read, alongside some valuable context from the author's introduction, for aspects of it to really click. Written in the wake of nuclear paranoia, across the 40s and 50s, the novel is half cute and idealistic for its quirky speculation on a dog-dominated utopia, and half bleak and cynical for its slow erasure of mankind with his tendency towards selfishness and violence. It imagines a world in which the only way out of an unspoken inevitable apocalyptic nightmare is to let another, different-minded species take the reigns, and allow the memory of man and his evil to drift into mythology. Alongside this I read two other aptly post-apocalyptic dystopian fictions: Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, a dark fable where Christian texts are twisted to promote a regionally subjective genetic supremacy; and Hoban’s Riddley Walker, a deeply British and almost impenetrable exploration of the destruction and reconstruction of language and history in the ashes of nuclear warfare.

All these stories hammered home the nightmarish possibilities, the wishful thinking, and the cynicism towards humanity that comes with the territory of mass destructive power. Science fiction laying bare a terrifying science fact, something that’s so hard to think about that it’s easier to just not. Oppenheimer isn’t science fiction though, and it doesn’t need to show much to convince us of a very real past and present horror.

So, as a non-Nolaner, my appreciation largely boiled down to the subject matter, what’s been in the news, what reading material I’d been shoving into my brain, and how painfully relevant that subject continues to feel. That’s not to say that there’s nothing to credit here - Nolan undoubtedly delivers at several points; the use of sound design as foreshadowing was something I found to be particularly effective, as well as the wise choice to leave the horrifying repercussions largely absent from the screen, instead focusing on a more isolated perspective with imagery mostly left to the imagination: the reaction to the images flashing from a projector; the cold, careless manner in which decisions are made and lives are lost; the subjective rendering of perspective during bittersweet celebration.

And just as my reading list set the stage for the impact of Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer conjured up other media that needs little provocation to make itself present in my brain. The HBO mini-series, Chernobyl bares imagery I’ll likely never shake free from, but its gritty portrayal of the gory result of nuclear technology + human incompetence is in contrast to Oppenheimer, with Nolan’s subjective distancing from its calculated creation and subsequent execution. I also bare a strange nostalgic memory of watching Japanese animation Barefoot Gen at slightly too young an age, both horrified at the graphic imagery and its stark pairing with cheesy drama, scoffing at what I then naively believed to be laughably unrealistic (such as when drinking water becomes poisonous — oh yes, young Scrib. That is very much a factor with radiation).

All this is to say that Oppenheimer has resonated with me less as a film or a technical work and more as one of many effective contributions to an increasingly concerning topic. I honestly think the most terrifying thing about Oppenheimer, about City, about Chernobyl, about anything and everything that speaks into the concept of nuclear technology, is not the mere fact that it remains relevant, but the frightening notion that it may never cease to be.