Hiroshima grapples with ‘Oppenheimer’ Oscars success

“Oppenheimer” had a glittering night at the Oscars but in Hiroshima, devastated by the first nuclear bomb in 1945, the film about the weapon’s creator is harder to stomach.

“Is this really a movie that people in Hiroshima can bear to watch?” said Kyoko Heya, president of the Japanese city’s international film festival, on Monday after the blockbuster won seven Academy Awards including best picture.

Christopher Nolan also picked up best director for the biopic, which was a huge hit worldwide last summer — except in Japan, where it was absent from cinemas.

There was no official statement at the time, fuelling speculation that sensitivities around the subject matter had kept the film off Japanese screens.

Around 140,000 people died in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki when the United States dropped atomic bombs on the cities, days before the end of World War II.

The mega-budget “Oppenheimer” will finally be released in Japan on March 29, but Heya has organised a special screening on Tuesday for high school students.

The 69-year-old told AFP in the city’s Peace Memorial Park near the bomb’s hypocentre that she had found Nolan’s movie “very America-centric”.

In the park, the ruins of a domed building stand as a stark reminder of the horrors of the attack, along with a museum and other sombre memorials.

Heya was at first “terrified” about the prospect of screening it in Hiroshima, today a thriving metropolis of 1.2 million people.

But eventually, she stopped questioning her decision.

“I now want many people to watch the movie, because I’d be happy to see Hiroshima, Nagasaki and atomic weapons become the subject of discussions thanks to this movie,” she said.

‘Not unaccountable’

A screening will also be held in Nagasaki before the film’s official release date.

Yu Sato, a 22-year-old student at Hiroshima City University, said she felt “a bit scared” about how bomb survivors and their families would react to the Oscar-winning film.

“I have mixed feelings, to be honest,” said Sato, who works with the survivors through her studies.

“Oppenheimer created the atomic bomb, which means he made this world a very scary place,” she said.

“Even if he did not intend to kill many people, he cannot be seen as completely unaccountable.”

Director Nolan has said he was inspired to make “Oppenheimer” after stumbling upon a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who oversaw the invention of the atomic bomb.

The film became a sensation last year when it was released on the same day as “Barbie”, spawning countless viral memes about the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon.

But those jokes sparked anger online in Japan, the only country to have suffered a wartime nuclear attack, and social media users were also quick to react to the “Oppenheimer” Oscars sweep.

One user on X, formerly Twitter, called the movie’s seven victories “overwhelming”, asking: “What is this strength? It must be one heck of a masterpiece.”

Another questioned its frame of reference.

“Maybe it’s time someone made a film about atomic bombs from the perspective of Japan or a Japanese person.”