"A horrible way to die": how did Chernobyl recreate a nuclear fusion | Television and radio

WWe were fortunate to have survived the cold war without nuclear attack. The pop culture of this icy age warned what the bomb would do: the crispiness of the skin; the slow agony of radiation sickness; pollution of the earth; and the death of cities.

The bomb did not explode, but some people have experienced a fragment of this horror. The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 resulted in explosions, radiation sickness, evacuations, contaminated land and, finally, medals handed over and memorials erected. It was war after all – but not against the west; it was another type of nuclear enemy.

Chernobyl, Sky Atlantic / HBO's drama, takes place in five upsetting episodes that show that the 1986 blast was more than a disaster in a decade, horribly cluttered by them: it was a hideous taste of nuclear war, a monstrous dissimulation and, finally, an event. this helped to bring down the Soviet Union.

So it is normal for the series to begin with the explosion, as if to dismiss it so that we can focus on what will happen next. The explosion was caused by a late-night safety test, which caused a sharp increase in power due to the defective design of the reactor. The explosion was so great that one worker immediately said, "Americans!". It was finally nuclear war. The force of the explosion propelled the huge concrete reactor cover as a penny, mouth wide open, emitting radiation in a trail of blue light.

There was no ordinary explosion at the time and that is why Luke Hall, the production designer in the series, committed himself to making sure that these scenes do not look like film about Hollywood disasters. While filming at Ignalina's nuclear power plant in Lithuania, Hall prowled the scene and shook his head in front of the roaring flames and sparking sparks saying, "Nah. It looks like Die Hard. This subtle approach spread elsewhere, with Hall's desire to recreate the faded look of the end of the Soviet era, instead of devoting all his energy to kapow explosions, he focused on "small decorative pieces" evoking a clumsy Soviet style. He searched the flea markets of Kiev and found old clocks, phones and ashtrays. Although it may seem like a dream for any Westerner in search of Soviet chic, Hall recalls the market as a dark place, filled with old people selling trinkets and, in his opinion, relieved to get rid of it. They do not see any nostalgia in these old things, he says. "They see politics and this is a time they want to forget."

Costume designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux was responsible for finding clothes from the Soviet era. She learned that the elites could have gotten good western clothes for their costumes, but for all the others, it was a slippery polyester life. To recreate the wan modes of the time, she used contemporary patterns and outfits made by a Lithuanian tailor who had worked during the Soviet era. She also discovered that Ukrainian eBay was a real treasure and bought scarves, skirts, blouses and endless wool suits. Few of these outfits could be considered attractive to a modern Western eye, but fortunately her boss welcomed the stacks of dark clothes. Dicks-Mireaux said, "The director [Swedish film-maker Johan Renck] really wanted this look – wanted an ugly, gritty look. He did not want to be glamorous. "

The work of Daniel Parker, Head of Makeup and Prosthetics, had no such keys either. His task was to recreate the effect of radiation burns on human skin. Ask Parker what radiation is doing to the body and it is dull. "You are melting," he said. "The only way to describe the problem is to put salt on a slug. The tissue breaks down. The skin slips. It'll just go. One day, you move your arm and the skin will fall. "

Surprisingly, Parker did not look in the pictures of victims of Hiroshima or Nagasaki for examples of radiation damage, as he suspected they were tempered by war propaganda. He turned his attention to medical textbooks, which allowed him to create a technique for Chernobyl where he "superimposed" the skin: to paint the body of the actors with wounds, then to cover them with a semi-translucent layer, giving the impression that wounds force themselves to the surface as the body degrades from the inside. The effect is terrible to see. Yet Parker was strict in saying that these men should not be relegated to the rank of "zombies" in Hollywood, and he explains that the director has ensured that sympathy reigns around these characters: even if they are frozen on the bed, gurgling and fading, they still speak, and a woman can still hold her husband's rotten fingers.

"It's the worst way to die," says Parker. "Beyond anything you can imagine. The most horrible way to die. I think it's the worst, according to medieval torture. What makes it particularly atrocious is that the victims have been denied pain relief. In the later stages of radiation sickness, you can not inject morphine, he explains. "The walls of the veins are shattering."

Thus, the Chernobyl disaster caused atrocious deaths without antalgic drugs, which brings us back to the horror of nuclear war. The NHS plans after a nuclear attack show that stocks of drugs would be quickly depleted and that those who would be desperately injured would be allowed to die without the pitiful mercy of a supermarket paracetamol.

Chernobyl is a compelling and brilliantly realized drama, but it is also a warning – the dangers of lying, arrogance and complacency as well as nuclear war itself.

The last episode of Chernobyl airs Tuesday at 21 hours on Sky Atlantic. The whole series is available on Sky Go and NowTV