Chernobyl. (15.)
Directed by Jonah Renck.
Starring Jarred Harris, Stellan Skarsgard, Emily Watson, Paul Ritter, Jessie Buckley, Adam Nagaitis. Out on DVD on July 15th. Blu-ray July 29th.
Chernobyl just blew up out of nowhere. The first I knew of it was a billboard for Now TV featuring Emily Watson's face and the title. Then this HBO/ Sky co-production was suddenly rated as the greatest TV programme ever on the IMDB chart, brushing aside a couple of David Attenbourghs. Its ascension was that quick and that bewildering. I just couldn't see how a binge-watch, box set drama could be made about the explosion at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in 1986. But actually the solution was simple: they made a zombie film of it. Almost everybody in this recreation of the disaster and its consequences is, to varying degrees, the walking dead.
After a brief prologue, we start with the disaster itself, no build-up, no explanation of how things went wrong. From there the drama's focus spreads outwards with the radiation. The first episode is all about the plant and events in the city on and after the explosion in the reactor. Gradually over the course of the five episodes, it takes us through the two years of fall out: the scientists trying to organise the cleanup the firemen dying of radiation poisoning; the politicians trying to avoid getting the blame and downplaying it as much as possible.
It fixes on a number of characters. Harris and Skarsgard are a scientist/ politician double act at the plant overseeing operations. Watson is a composite figure of all the other nuclear physicist who helped out. Buckley is the wife of one of the firemen, desperate to be by his side despite the risks. Barry Keoghan joins the cast for one episode as an inexperienced soldier drafted in to join a squad killing contaminated wildlife.
The main performers are perfectly cast. Watson plays a busybody nuclear physicist from Minsk and you can just see her travelling all the way to Chernobyl to poke her nose in. In a predominantly English cast, Skarsgard is the odd one out. Playing a Kremlin apparatchik reluctantly assigned the job of clearing up the mess, he has been made up to look like a cross between the President Chernenko lookalike in the Frankie Goes To Hollywood Two Tribes video and Peter Vaughan's Groutie in Porridge. These days he generally seems to be cruising lazily through his roles but here he is really fired up.
But the project really belongs to Jared Harris. Other than a very decent Moriarty in the second Sherlock Downey Jr film, he's gone largely unnoticed in unseen movies. Roles in The Crown and The Terror gave him a boost and now he could be on the verge of Anthony Hopkins type post-Hannibal Lector success. Harris has a drinker's face. Yes, I know that's a bit crass as he's the son of an alcoholic but that face of his makes a very strong statement. It's a great tool, especially as it is paired with a drinker's voice. A depth of character is established almost instantly.
Chernobyl is the brainchild of writer/ creator/ producer Craig Mazin. Or as the opening credits have it: written by Craig Mazin. Created by Craig Mazin. Executive producer Craig Mazin. His previous writing credits are both the Hangover sequels and a couple of the Scary Movie spoofs, so who can blame him for basking while the basking is good. This is not without precedent: prior to the Sopranos its creator David Chase was primarily known for writing episodes of The Rockford Files, a great show but not really comparable; before Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan worked on The X-Files and its spinoff The Smoking Man. To direct Mazin got in Johan Renck whose main directing credits are all music promos, including David Bowie's last testaments BlackStar and Lazarus.
I can't really see Chernobyl being the best TV programme ever, but it is impressive. It feels old fashioned, like the more social conscious British TV dramas of the 70s and 80s, the product of a TV landscape where projects would be made because they were likely to be good rather than make tonnes of money. Chernobyl is full of moments that stay with you, such as the comrades running on to the irradiated reactor roof for 90 seconds to clear away the graphite.
I always hate the way real-life drama fiddle with the truth but Mazin seems to have been sparing with his artistic license. The Watson character is a composite of around 16 nuclear physicists, (which the programme admits to in its closing credits) and the Harris and Skarsgard characters are manipulated to make them a little more central than they were, and appear at events that they weren't really present at. But overall, it's one of those rare occasions where the dramatisation probably is superior to a documentary.
The only thing I didn't get was, why? What's the motivation for this scathing attack on the Soviet Union, nearly thirty years after it ceased to exist. Even Gorbachev gets a good kicking. All the way through the people in authority seem incapable of facing up to reality and are more concerned with covering their backs. Well, boo and hiss on that, and part of Chernobyl's achievement is its chilling portrait of what societies buried in ideology are like. But really, do you think it would be much different here? Any western government would lie and mislead just as much, and the cause of the disaster would still be cutting corners, only for reasons of cost rather than ideology.
A key scene comes in the first episode when the high up Chernobyl party members have a meeting in a bunker to discuss how to react which is, a great black comic set piece of self-deception. And watching this it struck me that I had seen all this before. These chainsmoking men in drab grey and mustard brown suits gathered around the table are our collective memory's image of 70's trade unionists. Adrian Rawlins, who plays Nikolai Fomin, even bears a certain resemblance to Richard Davies, the balding actor always cast as excitable Welshmen in various 70s sitcoms (Oh No It's Selwyn Frogitt, Please Sir) and obstreperous committee members. I'm not saying that the whole thing is a Jeremy Corbyn hit job, but it must give the evil tyrant Rupert Murdoch some satisfaction that Sky's most acclaimed drama hit slips in a sly warning to viewers - many of whom must be despairing about the effects barbarian free marketeer nutjobs are having on the world - about the dangers of returning to the bad old days of collective bargaining and nationalisation.
Directed by Jonah Renck.
Starring Jarred Harris, Stellan Skarsgard, Emily Watson, Paul Ritter, Jessie Buckley, Adam Nagaitis. Out on DVD on July 15th. Blu-ray July 29th.
Chernobyl just blew up out of nowhere. The first I knew of it was a billboard for Now TV featuring Emily Watson's face and the title. Then this HBO/ Sky co-production was suddenly rated as the greatest TV programme ever on the IMDB chart, brushing aside a couple of David Attenbourghs. Its ascension was that quick and that bewildering. I just couldn't see how a binge-watch, box set drama could be made about the explosion at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in 1986. But actually the solution was simple: they made a zombie film of it. Almost everybody in this recreation of the disaster and its consequences is, to varying degrees, the walking dead.
After a brief prologue, we start with the disaster itself, no build-up, no explanation of how things went wrong. From there the drama's focus spreads outwards with the radiation. The first episode is all about the plant and events in the city on and after the explosion in the reactor. Gradually over the course of the five episodes, it takes us through the two years of fall out: the scientists trying to organise the cleanup the firemen dying of radiation poisoning; the politicians trying to avoid getting the blame and downplaying it as much as possible.
It fixes on a number of characters. Harris and Skarsgard are a scientist/ politician double act at the plant overseeing operations. Watson is a composite figure of all the other nuclear physicist who helped out. Buckley is the wife of one of the firemen, desperate to be by his side despite the risks. Barry Keoghan joins the cast for one episode as an inexperienced soldier drafted in to join a squad killing contaminated wildlife.
The main performers are perfectly cast. Watson plays a busybody nuclear physicist from Minsk and you can just see her travelling all the way to Chernobyl to poke her nose in. In a predominantly English cast, Skarsgard is the odd one out. Playing a Kremlin apparatchik reluctantly assigned the job of clearing up the mess, he has been made up to look like a cross between the President Chernenko lookalike in the Frankie Goes To Hollywood Two Tribes video and Peter Vaughan's Groutie in Porridge. These days he generally seems to be cruising lazily through his roles but here he is really fired up.
But the project really belongs to Jared Harris. Other than a very decent Moriarty in the second Sherlock Downey Jr film, he's gone largely unnoticed in unseen movies. Roles in The Crown and The Terror gave him a boost and now he could be on the verge of Anthony Hopkins type post-Hannibal Lector success. Harris has a drinker's face. Yes, I know that's a bit crass as he's the son of an alcoholic but that face of his makes a very strong statement. It's a great tool, especially as it is paired with a drinker's voice. A depth of character is established almost instantly.
Chernobyl is the brainchild of writer/ creator/ producer Craig Mazin. Or as the opening credits have it: written by Craig Mazin. Created by Craig Mazin. Executive producer Craig Mazin. His previous writing credits are both the Hangover sequels and a couple of the Scary Movie spoofs, so who can blame him for basking while the basking is good. This is not without precedent: prior to the Sopranos its creator David Chase was primarily known for writing episodes of The Rockford Files, a great show but not really comparable; before Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan worked on The X-Files and its spinoff The Smoking Man. To direct Mazin got in Johan Renck whose main directing credits are all music promos, including David Bowie's last testaments BlackStar and Lazarus.
I can't really see Chernobyl being the best TV programme ever, but it is impressive. It feels old fashioned, like the more social conscious British TV dramas of the 70s and 80s, the product of a TV landscape where projects would be made because they were likely to be good rather than make tonnes of money. Chernobyl is full of moments that stay with you, such as the comrades running on to the irradiated reactor roof for 90 seconds to clear away the graphite.
I always hate the way real-life drama fiddle with the truth but Mazin seems to have been sparing with his artistic license. The Watson character is a composite of around 16 nuclear physicists, (which the programme admits to in its closing credits) and the Harris and Skarsgard characters are manipulated to make them a little more central than they were, and appear at events that they weren't really present at. But overall, it's one of those rare occasions where the dramatisation probably is superior to a documentary.
The only thing I didn't get was, why? What's the motivation for this scathing attack on the Soviet Union, nearly thirty years after it ceased to exist. Even Gorbachev gets a good kicking. All the way through the people in authority seem incapable of facing up to reality and are more concerned with covering their backs. Well, boo and hiss on that, and part of Chernobyl's achievement is its chilling portrait of what societies buried in ideology are like. But really, do you think it would be much different here? Any western government would lie and mislead just as much, and the cause of the disaster would still be cutting corners, only for reasons of cost rather than ideology.
A key scene comes in the first episode when the high up Chernobyl party members have a meeting in a bunker to discuss how to react which is, a great black comic set piece of self-deception. And watching this it struck me that I had seen all this before. These chainsmoking men in drab grey and mustard brown suits gathered around the table are our collective memory's image of 70's trade unionists. Adrian Rawlins, who plays Nikolai Fomin, even bears a certain resemblance to Richard Davies, the balding actor always cast as excitable Welshmen in various 70s sitcoms (Oh No It's Selwyn Frogitt, Please Sir) and obstreperous committee members. I'm not saying that the whole thing is a Jeremy Corbyn hit job, but it must give the evil tyrant Rupert Murdoch some satisfaction that Sky's most acclaimed drama hit slips in a sly warning to viewers - many of whom must be despairing about the effects barbarian free marketeer nutjobs are having on the world - about the dangers of returning to the bad old days of collective bargaining and nationalisation.
