“Oppenheimer,” the film that won the Oscar for best picture, was finally released this Friday in Japan, eight months after a controversial popular marketing campaign and doubts about how the nuclear issue would be received in the only country that suffered a bombing. atomic.
The film directed by Christopher Nolan about the American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the race to develop the atomic bomb, has grossed almost $1 billion worldwide.
But Japan had been excluded from global screenings until now, despite being a major market for Hollywood. Nuclear explosions devastated the cities of Hiroshima, to the west, and Nagasaki, to the south, at the end of World War II, killing more than 200,000 people.
“Of course, it’s an incredible movie that deserves to win the Oscar,” said Kawai, a 37-year-old Hiroshima resident who gave only his last name.
“But the film also describes the atomic bomb in a way that seems to praise it, and as a person with roots in Hiroshima, I found it difficult to watch.”
A great admirer of Nolan’s films, Kawai, a civil servant, went to see “Oppenheimer” on opening day at a theater just a kilometer from the city’s Atomic Bomb Dome.
“I’m not sure it’s a movie that Japanese people should make a special effort to see,” he added.
Images on social media showed posters posted at the entrance to some Tokyo cinemas, warning that the film contained images of nuclear tests that could evoke damage caused by bombs.
Another Hiroshima resident, Agemi Kanegae, had mixed feelings upon finally seeing the film.
“The movie is worth seeing,” he said. “But I felt very uncomfortable with some scenes, like the Oppenheimer trial in the United States at the end.”
The film quickly became a global hit after its release in the United States last July. However, many Japanese were offended by the “Barbenheimer” memes, which linked the film to “Barbie,” a box office hit that was released around the same time.
Initially, Universal Pictures did not include “Oppenheimer” in its release schedule in Japan. Eventually, Bitters End, a Japanese independent film distributor, picked it up and gave it a release date after the Oscars.
Speaking to Reuters before the film’s release, atomic bomb survivor Teruko Yahata said she was looking forward to seeing it, hoping it would reignite the debate over nuclear weapons.
Yahata, now 86, said he had some empathy for the physicist behind the bomb. Rishu Kanemoto, a 19-year-old student, who saw the film this Friday, echoed that sentiment.
“Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the atomic bombs were dropped, are undoubtedly the victims,” Kanemoto said.
“But I think that although the inventor is one of the perpetrators, he is also the victim trapped in the war,” he added.
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