Oppenheimer

about 1 year ago

What happens to stars when they die?" Oppenheimer asks in a conversation at the beginning of the film and he already had me.

The first half of the movie completely absorbed me. I got lost in the corridors of universities and the minds of the biggest names in Physics. It is ecstatic to see before your eyes how these great scientists coexisted at the same time, their differences, mutual respect despite them and the common reduction of science to a higher purpose. Of course, this is something that is difficult for a person who does not know who these persons are and what they mean, and who has not been involved in any way in academia, to understand. And I don't mean that he understands quantum (I don't understand most things either), but that he understands the importance to our world and the science of what he sees. Thus, it is confirmed again that Nolan and his themes are not for everyone. And it's not bad, nothing is for everyone.

Interpretations are interpretations that will remain. Even the brief passing of such important actors added to the gravity of the film. Emily Blunt, although colder in general, epitomizes self-aware realism with a personal favorite scene when she clearly confronts Oppenheimer with the consequences of his actions with brutality and honesty. Robert D. Junior awesome, low-key, the perfect complex and insidious nemesis.

The chemistry, however, of the adoring Florence with Murphy, and the tension between them from the first few minutes of their meeting, is something I would have liked to have seen more of. In the few scenes between them, naked, exposed and one, a wonderful connection is achieved with philosophy and pure, simple beauty. The image of them sitting naked in armchairs is a shocking photograph or painting, wonderful in its simplicity and intimacy.

I don't know what to say about Murphy. His every look, every convulsion of his face fully captured his state of mind and fully conveyed the suffering of being a real scientist. Thus putting the viewer in the same internal oscillation. Scientists have always been treated as crazy, as delusional, as dangerous. Because of the people who dared, who were not afraid, who overlooked everything to understand this world and its workings, to satisfy personal ambitions still, because of them we are in today with all this knowledge and means. Science and technology are not bad in themselves, they have no sign, they are just experiments, inventions and achievements. How we use them gives the positive or negative sign. Yes, Oppenheimer knew how his invention was going to be used. But he was a genuine scientist, on the rampage of new discoveries and creation. He wanted at all costs to bring this experiment to an end, to overcome theory and reach practice, thereby obtaining ultimate knowledge. Yes, he knew. But he acted in a time that we cannot understand, in extreme tension, extreme insecurity, extreme fear for human life and the course of the world. He knew. Maybe he thought that since he succeeded, he could also control it. Perhaps he would succeed in convincing the government of the dire consequences of disarmament and global arms control. But he didn't succeed. When the government got what they wanted, they dusted off his communist and solidarity background and "excommunicated" him. The absolute stripping and the absolute discrediting of a scientist and man who owed him everything. No surprise of course.

This is clearly Nolan's most grounded film. No grand impressive scenes, no complicated story and an even more complicated timeline. But it is its simplicity that wins. The deafening silence in screaming scenes is infinitely louder. You feel every sound wave inside you go through you.

An all-time favorite will be Interstellar, but since the day before yesterday, these words have been echoing in my mind non-stop:
"-Can you explain quantum mechanics to me?
-Well, this glass, this drink, this counter top, our bodies, all of it. It's mostly empty space. Groupings of tiny energy waves bound together.