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The cosmic horror is extremely difficult to communicate visually. The feeling that there is something unknowable, old and almighty under the shell of our world can be evoked through writing, but it is an extremely delicate concept to show Someone & # 39; a.
But the five strands of HBO Chernobyl The series is perhaps one of the best examples of cosmic horror ever filmed, and this feat is made even more impressive by the fact that the series is based on real events. While many filmmakers have striven to convey the inspiring fear inspired by the ancient gods of Lovecraft, the creative team behind Chernobyl struck the same tone by invoking unlimited fear from even banal objects, such as small pieces of graphite.
Chernobyl It's interesting as a dramatic interpretation of a historical event, but it's almost as good as the swarming of Lovecraft's ideas about the unlimited power of the arcane gods that the human mind can never imagine, let alone control . And the cosmic horror is perhaps the best lens to watch the series and a terrible warning about the dangers that humanity faces today.
Why is Chernobyl so good at cosmic horror?
How do you show the audience something that is described as too big and too horrible for our mind to understand? What can be so horrible that it can strip the mental health of those who experience it, which can then be shown to the viewer as a kind of special effect ?
This is the challenge of translating the horror lovecraftian on the screen. Different films have approached this idea in different ways, with varying degrees of success.
Chernobyl deals with the 1986 nuclear disaster that occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Ukraine, as a result of a cascade failure of government surveillance and the inability of those who worked there to understand the Magnitude of problems could get, and how fast.
The Soviet Union wanted, above all, gigantic and cheap nuclear reactors managed by people loyal to the party. An accident of this magnitude seemed almost inevitable in retrospect – and considered almost impossible at the time. Even if a collapse could happen, how could you say no to the person above you in the chain of command when it meant you were going to disappear, and the next person online would be happy to say yes?
As the HBO mini-series explains, embarrassing truths were concealed and impossible tasks were ordered under the implicit threat of exile or murder. If these men could not turn the Soviet Union into a state-of-the-art nation thanks to abundant and cheap nuclear energy, the KGB would find people who could. This attitude continued after The explosion, too, as the most effective way to combat the biblical fallout of nuclear waste released was to pretend not to happen at all.
"It's not alarmist if it's a fact!" Professor Legasov, a character who is considered a hero in this story, tries to tell a rally of Soviet leaders, including Gorbachev, after rejecting the question. And its facts seem hard to believe, even today.
"Every atom of [Uranium] 235 is like a bullet, "he explains, referring to the Chernobyl uranium fuel that was cleaned from the reactor during the accident. "Traveling almost at the speed of light, penetrate everything in its path: wood, metal, concrete, flesh. Each gram of uranium 235 contains more than one billion billion of these bullets. It's in one gram. Now, Chernobyl holds more than three million grams and, for the moment, it is on fire. "
The window means that these particles are lifted. Rain means that these particles are brought back on them. Every breath brings death closer and nobody wanted to believe what was happening. A terrifying scene shows two workers leaning over the pit to see what is happening at the base. They see a whirlwind of white and orange light. Nuclear power itself, exposed to the air. Annihilation.
You may not be able to feel it directly, feel it, or taste it, but it means death, and it does not matter what your government thinks or can not happen.
When the radiation destroys a machine designed to work on the moon, the government believes that it has no choice but to send men to work in teams of 90 seconds to clean up at hand radioactive graphite. It follows a scene in which men in protective gear move stones, caught off guard, click on the sound of a dosimeter to remind you that they are working in one of the the most arduous and dangerous environments on our planet. It is a scene of ordinary terror, but unimaginable.
There are many scenes like this one in which seemingly ordinary people do relatively normal things in the midst of a disaster that has already cost their lives, even though the physical symptoms have not yet been revealed. Every monologue, every moment of anger is punctuated by terrible numbers that reveal the magnitude of what is at stake. Thousands of square kilometers. Tens of millions of people. Hundreds of thousands of years. Incalculable cost. None of this seems real. None of this power would ever be controlled by people who thought they could turn their backs and wish for it. Right?
This remarkable power intersection, the brutality of radiation and the gentle ambivalence of the people in power that give Chernobyl the feeling of being so vital, but scary. The accident would not have taken place without Soviet pride, and yet it could not have been mastered so successfully without the sacrifice of the workers nowadays who volunteered for the post by duty or who are made to say that they had no choice. give up their own lives to try to contain an endless destructive force that they have hardly understood.
The accident was caused by human nature and it is the worst and best of human nature that has allowed to limit the damage. It is hard to believe that we have learned anything since, especially since politicians in many parts of the world are openly ignorant of the science and warnings of those who know better. The power of radiation is almost impossible to understand, making it such an interesting subject for cosmic horror. But it is the short-sighted nature of the human condition that makes shows like Chernobyl fear, because they repeat the warning that the mistakes we make can not be corrected by ignoring the insurmountable chances of overcoming them.
The true tension of cosmic horror is not that the cost of stopping an existential threat is too high, but that the danger it poses may seem so encompassing that we are comfortable doing nothing at all.
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