ALBAWABA - Survivors of Hiroshima respond to Oppenheimer as the movie, which won seven Oscars, is being premiered in Japan, where two atomic bombs took place in 1945, changing history forever.
Oppenheimer made its official debut on Friday in the country where nuclear weapons created by the American scientist who served as the film's subject destroyed two cities 79 years ago. It makes sense that Japanese moviegoers' responses were conflicted and intensely sentimental.
The "horror of nuclear weapons" wasn't "sufficiently depicted," according to some spectators, who opened up to local media, the Associated Press, and The Guardian on Friday. Others said it was "right not to broaden it out too much to show the aftermath."
The AP reports that distributors in Japan halted distribution of the Christopher Nolan picture, which garnered seven Academy Awards at this year's ceremony, due to negative feedback about "Barbenheimer" jokes. Since then, it has made its national debut this week, notably at the Hatchoza theater in Hiroshima.
Toshiyuki Mimaki, who was three years old when the bombing of Hiroshima occurred, stated he has always been enthralled by the tale of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is widely referred to as "the father of the atomic bomb" due to his leadership of the Manhattan Project.
He said, sorrowfully, over the phone to The Associated Press, "What were the Japanese thinking, carrying out the attack on Pearl Harbor, starting a war they could never hope to win?"
He is now chairperson of a group of bomb victims called the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organization and he saw Oppenheimer at a preview event. “During the whole movie, I was waiting and waiting for the Hiroshima bombing scene to come on, but it never did,” Mimaki said.
