Mixed reactions to “Oppenheimer” premiere in Japan

Toshiyuki Mimaki survived the attack on Hiroshima as a three-year-old.

He tells the AP news agency that he is fascinated by the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is referred to as the “father of the atomic bomb” for having led the Manhattan Project.

– What were the Japanese thinking when they carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor and started a war they could never dream of winning, says Mimaki to AP over the phone.

He leads a group of Japanese victims of the atomic bombs and was at an advance premiere of the film.

Does not show the devastation of the atomic bomb

The film is about Oppenheimer as a person and his inner conflicts, and does not attempt to show what happened on the ground when the atomic bombs were dropped on the two cities.

– Throughout the film I waited and waited for the scene with the bombing of Hiroshima, but it never did, says Mimaki.

Around 100,000 people died immediately, and thousands more died in the days that followed, most of them civilians.

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The subject is sensitive in Japan, and there was excitement surrounding the premiere, which comes more than eight months after the film could first be seen in American cinemas.

Critical Hiroshima mayor

Former Hiroshima mayor Takashi Hiraoka is critical of the fact that the bombing of the city is not depicted in the film.

– From Hiroshima’s point of view, the horror of nuclear weapons was not portrayed well enough. The film was made to validate the conclusion that the atomic bomb was used to save American lives, he said at a preview of the film.

But some moviegoers praise the film, AP writes. A man who saw it in Tokyo on Friday told the news agency that the film was good, stressing that the subject matter is both very difficult and interesting for Japanese people.

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Another said he was moved by the scenes depicting Oppenheimer’s struggle with himself. Neither of the two would say what their names were, AP writes.

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Contentious marketing

The marketing and online coverage of the film, particularly the so-called “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, where the comedy “Barbie” was paired with “Oppenheimer” due to the films’ coinciding premiere dates, was met with strong reactions.

Warner Bros. Japan, which distributed “Barbie” in the country, apologized after some photos on social media – which were not made by the company – showed the Barbie doll with items alluding to the atomic bombs.

Among other things, a photo in which Barbie actress Margot Robbie is sitting on the shoulders of “Oppenheimer” lead actor Cillian Murphy with an orange sea of ​​flames in the background caused a stir. The official “Barbie” account responded to the photo that it was “going to be a summer for the memory books.”

Japanese answer?

Professor Kazuhiro Maeshima at Sophia University in Tokyo works with American politics and refers to the film as an expression of “an American conscience”.

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People expecting to see a film with an anti-war message may be disappointed. But telling Oppenheimer’s story in a Hollywood blockbuster would have been unthinkable in the past, when a justification of the atomic bombs characterized American culture to a greater extent, according to Maeshima.

– The film shows that the United States has changed dramatically, he says to AP.

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Others say the world may be ready for a Japanese response to the narrative. Takashi Yamazaki is the director of “Godzilla Minus One”. The film won the Oscar for special effects, and the Godzilla story is considered by many to be a metaphor for the atomic bomb.

– I feel that an answer is needed from Japan to “Oppenheimer”. One day I’d like to make that movie, he said in an online interview with “Oppenheimer” director Christopher Nolan, who agreed.

Possible starting point

Lawyer Hiroyuki Shinju points out that Japan and Germany were also guilty of horrible things during the war.

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Historians say that Japan was also working on producing nuclear weapons, and that they would almost certainly have used them against other countries, according to Shinju.

– This film can serve as a starting point for the conversation about whether the use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki was legitimate, and about humanity’s and Japan’s reflections on nuclear weapons and war, he wrote in his commentary on “Oppenheimer”, which was published by the Tokyo Bar Association.