HIROSHIMA (Reuters) – The Oscar winner for best film, “Oppenheimer “, finally premiered in Japan this Friday, amid concerns about how the nuclear theme would be received in the only country that suffered from the effects of the atomic bomb.
The biggest winner at the Oscar ceremony earlier this month, the film directed by Christopher Nolan about the American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the race to develop the atomic bomb, grossed almost $1 billion at the global box office.
But Japan had been left out of global screenings until now, despite being a huge market for Hollywood. Nuclear explosions devastated the cities of Hiroshima, in the west, and Nagasaki, in the south, at the end of the Second World War, killing more than 200,000 people.
“Of course it’s an incredible film that deserves to win the Oscar,” said Hiroshima resident Kawai, 37, who gave only his last name.
“But the film also portrays 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 big fan of Nolan's films, Kawai, a civil servant, went to see “Oppenheimer” on the day of its premiere at a cinema just a kilometer from the city's Atomic Bomb Dome.
“I'm not sure this is a film that Japanese people should make a special effort to watch,” he added.
Images on social media showed posters posted at the entrances of some Tokyo theaters warning that the film featured images of nuclear tests that could evoke the damage caused by bombs.
Another Hiroshima resident, Agemi Kanegae, had mixed feelings upon finally watching the film.
“It was really worth watching the film,” said the 65-year-old retiree. “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. But many Japanese were offended by online memes of “Barbenheimer” created by fans that linked him to “Barbie,” a box office hit that debuted around the same time.
Universal Pictures initially left Japan out of its global release schedule for “Oppenheimer.” Eventually acquired by Bitters End, a Japanese independent film distributor, it was given a release date after the Oscar awards ceremony.
Speaking to Reuters ahead of the film's premiere, atomic bomb survivor Teruko Yahata said she was looking forward to seeing it, hoping to reinvigorate the debate over nuclear weapons.
Yahata, now 86, said he felt some empathy for the physicist behind the bomb. That sentiment was echoed by Rishu Kanemoto, a 19-year-old student, who watched the film this Friday.
“Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the atomic bombs were dropped, are certainly the victims,” Kanemoto said.
“But I think that although the inventor is one of the perpetrators, he is also the victim caught up in the war,” he added, referring to the physicist.
(Reporting by Irene Wang in Hiroshima)
Source: CNN Brasil
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