You down with OPP … YEAH YOU KNOW ME
What a great film. I’m too lazy to type out Oppenheimer, so I’ll be using OPP. Heck it even fits. Opp was very down with OPP.
Kicking off the year of the mashups — Oppenheimer. Part Hiroshima Mon Amour and a lot of Amadeus, it even has a little of that Orson Welles great — no NOT that one, that is way too easy — but Welles adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial. OPP has the striking visuals and complex non-linearity of Hiroshima Mon Amour. It even has the infidelity and the looming presence of the bomb. These are all good things. In both films there is a tension between an intimate human story and the story of humanity and their tenuous status vis a vis the bomb — between the human and humanity. OPP has shots of water drops, waves, and the texture of painting among others… and expansive shots of the bomb. It visually illustrates how something that could eradicate humanity germinates from the study of the properties of atoms (some of the smallest of things) — and the film explores the small human moments that lead to the momentous/disastrous achievement that is the atomic bomb. We all know what is going to happen when he pushes that button (spoiler alert humanity survived – but the explosion apparently caught the attention of the aliens who landed at nearby area 51 -to check it out see the proof here) the tension is how the results play out with all of the characters, and we feel the tension more profoundly in part due to the style of the film — the tension built by the fragmented story telling and non-linearity enhance this moment. And this is why I was fine with the length of the film. The story is not just about the bomb. The story is about the battle to successfully make the bomb, and then his more quixotic battle for peace.
Along the way, he works with and battle’s Robert Downey Jr.’s Strauss. A straight edged, religious, conniving mediocrity who schemes to bring the hero down out of pure envy. Oh wait, I got that from the character description of F Murray Abraham’s Salieri in Amadeus. It’s both of them. And they both crush it. While the genius of Amudheimer/Oppedeus is instantly recognized for his brilliance while screwing away, the straight edged Strauss/Salieri plots.
From there, as HST said, when the going gets weird the weird turn pro. And things get weird. Regardless of your feelings on the bomb, the government mobilization and support for the program show the power of government to affect change. But the final hour of the film, maybe my favorite part, showcases the governments byzantine, capricious, and arbitrary bureaucracy. It feels like a reimagining of Welles – and while pikers have compared it to Kane with its transfsormational great man bathed in bravura aesethetic experience… I say, screw that… That final act felt like Welles’ adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial. I could have watched that for hours more.
At the end, I kept thinking of Maxwell Smart’s old line if only he had used his genius for good instead of evil. OPP kind of does both. And sadly I also thought of Peter Medak’s swing satire, The Ruling Class. When Peter O’Toole goes crazy and thinks he is Jesus, he is pariah, but when he flips and suddenly thinks he is Jack the Ripper he becomes a pillar of society and the toast of the house of lords.
And this should have been the music for the closing credits.
No one is united
And all things are untied
Perhaps we’re boiling over inside
They’ve been telling lies
Who’s been telling lies?
There are no angels
There are devils in many ways
Take it like a man
The world’s a mess it’s in my kiss
The world’s a mess it’s in my kiss
The world’s a mess it’s in my kiss
The world’s a mess it’s in my kiss
You can’t take it back
Pull it out of the fire
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