Unveiling Oppenheimer on screen: A journey into brilliance

My original article here.

18 September 2023

"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer weaves an intricate tapestry, drawing from historical records and masterful storytelling. The film embarks on an intellectual odyssey, a profound journey into the heart of a complex figure.

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A biopic of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, known as the "father of the atomic bomb," the film finds its roots in the 2005 biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. The ambition and scope of Christopher Nolan’s interpretation of crucial moments in Oppenheimer’s life are immense. Within this dense and intricate period piece, timelines tangle, revealing Oppenheimer's multifaceted story.

Cillian Murphy’s portrayal of Oppenheimer captures a man enraptured by the boundless potential of science, only to realise too late the destructive power his creation holds. Like Prometheus giving fire to humans, he carries the weight of the bombs dropped on Japan and the knowledge that his creation might engender further devastation. Murphy excels in this role, his haunting expression and distant gaze in his piercing blue eyes becoming increasingly heart-wrenching as the film unfolds.

Accompanied by Ludwig Göransson’s score, these moments of guilt are both beautiful and horrifying. Oppenheimer’s character is meticulously unveiled, revealing the interplay between genius and torment that moulds his remarkable journey.

The film commences in 1926, with a young Oppenheimer studying under physicist Patrick Blackett (James D'Arcy) at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory. An anxious and homesick Oppenheimer leaves a poisoned apple for Blackett, only to reclaim it. The arrival of visiting scientist Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) leaves an impression, leading to Oppenheimer's pursuit of theoretical physics in Germany, where he earns his PhD and crosses paths with Werner Heisenberg (Matthias Schweighöfer).

Upon returning to the US, Oppenheimer teaches at UC Berkeley, joins Caltech, and encounters his future wife, Kitty Puening (Emily Blunt). His involvement with Communist Party member Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) adds complexity to his personal life. The progression of Nazi nuclear advancements in 1938 compels Oppenheimer to replicate their work.

As WWII ensues in 1942, General Groves (Matt Damon) recruits him for the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer forms a scientific team in Los Alamos, spurred by the Nazi threat. News of Tatlock's suicide reaches him. Post-German surrender, Oppenheimer supports using the bomb to end the Pacific war but dreads the consequences.

The Trinity test triumphs, culminating in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oppenheimer becomes synonymous with the "father of the atomic bomb" title, yet remains haunted by the destruction it wrought. While he advocates nuclear restraint, President Truman (Gary Oldman) dismisses his concerns. Oppenheimer's opposition to the hydrogen bomb fuels Cold War tensions.

In a bid to diminish his influence, former allies betray Oppenheimer. Despite defence testimonies, his security clearance is revoked. Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) orchestrates his downfall, but a flashback exposes Oppenheimer's authentic sentiments about his role.

Oppenheimer brilliantly fuses historical biopic with Nolan’s cinematic artistry. The cinematography encapsulates the essence of the World War 2 era, immersing the audience in a world grappling with the intricate interplay between intellect and conscience. Though the film's narrative structure is complex, it effectively portrays the nuanced layers of Oppenheimer's character. The recurring motif of resounding footfalls underscores the mounting sense of impending peril as the monumental implications of Oppenheimer’s scientific pursuits sharpen.

Nolan is known for his gritty Batman trilogy and his complex mindbending films like Inception, Interstellar and Tenet. Oppenheimer is reminiscent of 2017’s Dunkirk with the structure of 2000’s Memento. It was filmed in a combination of IMAX 65 mm and 65 mm large-format film and it’s spectacular to look at. The ensemble cast is a testament to Nolan’s pull in Hollywood. When he calls every actor worth their salt answers even if it’s for a cameo role.

Other than Cillian Murphy as the titular character, the standout roles go to Emily Blunt as Kitty, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, Matt Damon as General Groves and especially Robert Downey Jr. as the vengeful and petty Lewis Strauss.

Oppenheimer not only met but exceeded my expectations. It delivers a cinematic journey that intricately weaves history, storytelling, and moral introspection. Nolan's direction, coupled with Murphy's haunting portrayal, vividly brings Oppenheimer's internal conflicts to life. The fusion of intricate narrative, immersive cinematography, and standout performances elevates the film to cinematic artistry that resonates deeply.

Oppenheimer serves as a poignant reminder of the intricacies of scientific advancement and the weight of moral responsibility. This masterful creation, rich in emotion and depth, stands as a testament to the power of storytelling and filmmaking at its finest.

Barbie: A whimsical and empowering cinematic odyssey.

My original article here.

23 August 2023

I got caught up in the enormous Barbie wave, just like the rest of the world. I eagerly embarked on this cinematic journey, sporting the lone pink text T-shirt I own. Much like a seasoned explorer venturing into uncharted territories, I found myself captivated by the allure of Barbie's world.

Mattel’s Barbie as a brand, is a timeless cultural emblem that's captured the hearts and kindled the imaginations of many generations. The brand has also been at the heart of many dialogues concerning unrealistic beauty standards for women in our society.

Greta Gerwig’s fantasy comedy take on Barbie pushes the iconic doll into the limelight once more, ready to ignite new dreams and aspirations. I had no idea what to expect from this film and I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun Barbie is.

A case of capitalism

The film is woke as hell, in all the best ways possible, but at the same time, it’s a film produced by Mattel, the mega toy manufacturing company that produces Barbie dolls and makes a lot of money from the brand. Mattel does something that Disney did with She-Hulk and Netflix did with the recent season of Black Mirror; they're poking fun at their evil corporation image.

Like, hey, we know we’re sort of the bad guys, but what are we gonna do? A case of capitalism making money by poking fun at itself. Fittingly enough, the scenes that feature the Mattel CEO (played by a zany Will Ferrell) and his executives are the most unnecessary in Herwig’s Barbie. If you cut out the scenes featuring these characters, it wouldn’t take away anything significant from the film.

As I said, the film is fun and wholesomely woke. Barbie won't solve the problems of patriarchy or consumerism but it will make you think about them. And that is probably also where that will end but maybe that’s something. I could never have imagined a movie about Barbie having an existential crisis could be so much fun. Barbie is a meticulously crafted film. Every detail is a testament to the artistry of Greta Gerwig and her team.

The threads of womanhood, masculinity and ambition

The narrative is a captivating exploration of identity, intricately weaving the threads of womanhood, masculinity and ambition into the very fabric of Barbie's odyssey.

The central character is Margot Robbie’s Barbie. She’s stereotypical Barbie, a paragon of modern womanhood, for better or worse. Barbieland is awash in vibrant pink and all is seemingly well. Everything is perfect. Variations of Barbies, Kens and Allan live under a cheerful matriarchy. The Barbies have the most prestigious careers in Barbieland. They have all the political power and are doctors, lawyers, writers and physicists.

The Kens, meanwhile, spend their days at the beach. They have no skills applicable to contributing to society. Ryan Gosling’s Beach Ken is the quintessential Ken and is only happy when Stereotypical Barbie notices him but she barely takes note of him.

Though everything seems perfect in Barbieland, there are cracks in the foundation of their society. The Kens are unhappy but don’t know why and there’s a group of discontinued Barbie models, who are treated like outcasts due to their unconventional traits. Barbies like Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie (whom everyone calls Weird Barbie behind her back, but also to her face).

Things take a turn for the worse when Barbie starts having thoughts of death, develops bad breath, cellulite and flat feet. The problem seems to stem from our world, the real world. Thus Barbie embarks on a whirlwind adventure to our world to deal with her existential crises. In the real world, she meets America Ferrera’s Gloria, a Mattel employee who helps her, and Ariana Greenblatt as Sasha, Gloria's daughter.

Boasting a stellar cast that includes Issa Rae as President Barbie, Alexandra Shipp as Writer Barbie, Emma Mackey as Physicist Barbie, Simu Liu as Tourist Ken, Kingsley Ben-Adir as Basketball Ken, Ncuti Gatwa as Artist Ken, Michael Cera as Allan, and Helen Mirren as the narrator, Barbie's ensemble is nothing short of remarkable.

Yet, beneath the dazzling array of colours and camaraderie, Barbie's true triumph lies in its ability to transcend the cinematic realm. It unabashedly embraces the legacy of its iconic doll counterpart, extending a heartfelt invitation to audiences to embrace their unique narratives and chart unexplored paths.

The film radiates an ethos of empowerment, resonating with the very essence that has made Barbie an enduring emblem of aspiration. As the credits roll, one cannot help but be swept away by the resonance of Barbie's transformative voyage—a voyage that resounds with the mantra, “You can be anything.”

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, A Study of Grief

“In my culture, death is not the end. It’s more of a stepping-off point. You reach out with both hands and Bast and Sekhmet, they lead you into a green veld where you can run forever.”

Save the date. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will be available for streaming on Disney+ from 01 February. The film had (has, depending on where you are) a solid theatrical run since its late October release last year and will be a welcome addition to Disney+'s Marvel library. On 08 February you can check out Marvel Studios' Assembled: The Making of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you are in for a treat.

Marvel's Phase 4 kicked off with the Disney+ show, Wanda Vision, whose theme was grief. Wanda loses Vision at the hands of Thanos and the grief of that loss tears her apart. We learn later that she is the Scarlet Witch, a being of unlimited power. Wanda uses that power to trap a town full of people in a bubble (well, a hex). She works through her grief by turning the town into a sitcom and controlling the citizens throughout various decades, depicting the family life she wished she could have had with Vision and their (imaginary?) children. The big problem with that show was that Wanda's grief was larger than life for a character we hadn't had a chance to connect with on such a deep emotional level and with whom she had a largely off-screen romance.

Phase 4 takes place in a post-Thanos world and many of the shows and films that make up this phase are hit-or-miss affairs because the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become too large and unruly. It's become a cinematic multiverse. Marvel's winning formula of telling interconnected stories has trapped them into filling their properties with references to other films and shows, cameos from other MCU characters and planting Easter Eggs. That makes it hard to tell a focused story. I digress, though. What I wanted to point out about Phase 4 is that its overarching theme has been loss and grief. Our heroes defeated Thanos but lost friends, family and lovers doing it.

Wakanda Forever presents us with the biggest loss in the MCU. We lost the Black Panther in real life. We lost the great Chadwick Boseman to colon cancer in 2020. He played the graceful King T'Challa knowing that he was dying and sharing that knowledge and suffering only with his close family. Director Ryan Coogler takes the real grief that the cast and fans feel at the loss of Boseman and weaves it into this film's story. The screenplay for Wakanda Forever had to be rewritten after Boseman's death and Coogler wrote the grief of his passing into it. The film feels a little messy as a result, as messy as grief is.

Chadwick Boseman's spirit lives in this story. Wakanda may not be real and the Black Panther may be a fictional character but this story does what great stories do and lets us feel the real grief of losing someone who made a positive impact on our lives. Is this a perfect film? No. As I said, it's messy and you can tell that the script was rewritten and it’s bloated with the Marvel baggage all the MCU films have to carry. What it is, though, is a film with a lot of heart and genuine emotion. Boseman's death feels as unexpected in Wakanda as it was for most people in real life and everything is set off balance as a result.

The film kicks off with T'Challa dying from an unknown illness and his sister Shuri racing against the clock to find a way to save him. She fails and instead of being at his side in his last moments, she was in her lab. This film largely focuses on Shuri's grief, hurt and anger. She is young, impulsive and fiercely intelligent. Her grief is a reckless fire that burns down everyone in its path. Friend and foe alike. Letitia Wright plays Shuri's struggling character with heartfelt sincerity. It's no spoiler that Shuri takes up the mantle of Black Panther and does it in a way that shows she's been thrown into a role that's too big for her and that she's struggling to fill big shoes. Wright's performance captures that insecurity because the actress is thrust into the main role in this film because of Chadwick Boseman's passing.

Angela Bassett's performance as Queen Ramonda, on the other hand, is a masterclass in acting. Wow! Just wow! She commands the screen in every scene she's in as the Queen who's lost everything and has to show the world that Wakanda isn't on its knees after the loss of its leader, her son. Her speech asking whether she hasn't given everything for Wakanda sent shivers down my spine. Her Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture is more than deserved. Most of our favourite characters are back for the second outing, along with new faces. The gorgeous Lupita Nyong’o is back as Nakia, the Wakandan spy. Danai Gurira’s Okoye and Wakanda’s greatest warrior has become an MCU staple. She and her Dora Milaje warriors are as no-nonsense as ever. Winston Duke is back as wiser and more grounded M'Baku and Martin Freeman reprises his role as CIA agent Everett Ross.

South African actress, Connie Chiume reprises her role as Zawavari, previously the Mining Tribe Elder, but now the Elder Statesman. Trevor Noah also reprises his role as Shuri's AI assistant, Griot. While on the topic of South Africa, Xhosa is the official language of Wakanda but the American and British cast seemed to have gotten worse at the pronunciation of the Xhosa words than in the first film. Maybe they didn't have a speech coach this time, I don't know.

In his first MCU appearance in Captain America: Civil War, T'Challa says to Natasha Romanoff, “In my culture, death is not the end. It’s more of a stepping-off point. You reach out with both hands and Bast and Sekhmet, they lead you into a green veld where you can run forever.” This film asks all of us to take these words to heart and to make the best of our lives right here and now because our loved ones are not truly gone. Wakanda may be grieving but the wolves are at the door looking to get their hands on their precious resource, vibranium.

The search for vibranium is what brings the world in contact with the villain (or is it anti-villain?) of the piece, Namor and his people. In the comic books, he is the king of Atlantis and known as Namor the Sub-Mariner. Ryan Coogler and his team changed his comic book origins to fit in better with the world as it is set up in the MCU. The wonderful Mexican actor, Tenoch Huerta Mejía (you might know him from Narcos: Mexico) portrays Namor as the king of Talokan, an ancient civilization of underwater-dwelling people, who refer to him as the feathered serpent god K'uk'ulkan. The introduction of Talokan is where Wakanda Forever shines. We've seen the wonder that is Wakanda and now we're being taken to a breathtaking kingdom under the ocean dripping with Mayan symbolism. Wakandans avoided colonisation by hiding their country and Namor's people escaped the enslaving of the Mayan civilisation by the Spanish when their god led them into the ocean, where they built their vibranium-rich kingdom. Namor will do everything in his power to keep the surface dwellers from discovering Talokan and its vibranium. Given the colonial history, do you blame him? Representation matters and Wakanda Forever does a great job of shining the spotlight on underrepresented people in Hollywood.

The introduction of Riri Williams to set her up for her Ironheart Disney+ series is where the film gets bloated and is bogged down by MCU baggage. The character is an MIT student and genius inventor whose presence feels shoehorned in so that by the time we see her in her show, we can all be, yeah, I know her! Actress, Dominique Thorne does the best she can with what she is being given and you can’t expect more.

Music was an important feature of Black Panther and is equally important in Wakanda Forever. Ludwig Göransson returns as the composer and his scoring captures the grief of the film perfectly. The lead single, "Lift Me Up" by Rihanna was written by Tems, Ludwig Göransson, Rihanna and Ryan Coogler, as a tribute to Boseman. Tems' cover of Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry", which was used in the film's teaser trailer, was the song that got me in the feels.

Wakanda Forever is a wonderful sequel to the global phenomenon that was Black Panther and a beautiful tribute to Chadwick Boseman.