You are extremely skilled. You are praised as the best of the lot. You face and win many battles. You are the main ‘man’ in the biggest battle of them all, and you are proud to be ‘the one’. Then, shit happens. Self-doubt creeps in. You ponder; reach out for help. You get it and move on.
Well, do
you?
The
similarities between Arjuna, hero of the epic Mahabharata, and Oppenheimer, the
hero of Nolan’s eponymous epic, are uncanny in many aspects - multiple
spouses/girlfriends included. 😁
Well,
Arjuna had the best consultant at hand, Krishna, to help him through. Here,
Oppie settles for the next best thing, the printed version of the handbook.
Whether
Robert Oppenheimer wins that inner battle or not is NOT the crux of the movie.
What it delves into is the way to that and the process that he goes through.
You will
face trials – literally and figuratively.
You will
face betrayals – inner and outer.
You will face enlightenment – Krishna vs Einstein/Truman/Kitty anyone?
Oppenheimer is a fascinating peek into a complex human being who wants to kill his tutor with cyanide, is multi-talented including learning Dutch in 6 weeks so as to deliver an intricate Physics lecture, makes mistakes in math, gets involved in what he believes in - communism & human rights but pulls out from not going the whole hog, is super-confident of his abilities yet fragile, holds on to the schoolboy code of camaraderie to his own detriment, has this naiveté to believe that his actions are for the greater good despite indications otherwise, and has realization kicking in and breaks down once the fruits of his actions are out of his hand…
For those
who are looking for the Gita controversy… In what could be termed as a
harbinger of the destruction he is to cause, he quotes ‘I am become death, the
destroyer of the world’ when in bed with a nubile Jean Tatlock. That is that.
But the bigger (and better) Gita moments are when he meets President Truman...
O: Mr.
President, I have blood on my hands.
T: (waving
a clean white handkerchief wanting him to wipe it off), Dr. Oppenheimer, do you
think the people of Hiroshima are mad at you for the bomb? They are mad at ME!
(But, I had to do it!)
…and when
he meets Einstein by the pond, where what the great man says makes the penny drop
for Oppie, setting the path for his next many years of trials and tribulations
and peace.
...and when he has only one student to teach for his first course at UC Berkeley not unlike Krishna 😌
...and when a fellow scientist wants him to remove the put-on military dress and 'be himself', one did get reminded of 'vaasaamsi jeernani' Gita, 2:22 😇
Like the
Greek god Prometheus, Dr. O did give the fire of atomic weapons to humankind.
But the eagle which kept eating Prometheus’ liver only for it to grow the next
day, was the gnawing that Dr. O had to go through day-in and day-out, seeing
the nuclear proliferation with the guilt that it was his doing.
Did you
need iMAX for this? Perhaps not. As some wags pointed out, except for the
20-second Trinity test, there is nothing visually spectacular in the movie, and
they keep talking and talking and talking. But therein lies the irony. The
movie never sagged more due to the screenplay – alternating between the worst
moment of Oppie’s life – the trial to revoke his security clearance,
interestingly shot in color, and perhaps the best moment of his life – the
Senate hearing of Strauss where Oppie gets kind of exonerated, again
interestingly shot in black-and-white.
Potential
Oscars for Cillian Murphy for acting and Nolan for best adaptation from a book.
💜
A worthy
movie to watch a few times. Waiting for the OTT release to appreciate the
intricacies and enjoy the spread more.
#sriGINthoughts
#reviews #English #Oppenheimer #BhagavadGita
