Oppenheimer (2023)

 "You are an American Prometheus."

This is, of course, a superb film. I was expecting it to be exactly that, given its reputation, its cast and the fact that it's a Christopher Nolan film. It's a triumph. Yet, in many ways, it's also not really what one might expect.

This is, I suppose, broadly comparable to Lawrence of Arabia. It's a three hour epic (I'm not one for long films, but both films just fly by) based on the biography of one man in the context of his time, with lots of big themes to chew on. 

And this... isn't really the sort of film that Christopher Nolan has ever made before. Oh, there's a certain non-linear narrative structure ("fission" and "fusion"), but there's none of the clever structural trickery of a Tenet or an Inception. Instead, Nolan's directorial flair is used to illustrate theme and character, often showing us Oppenheimer's own imaginings of a nuclear blast.

The themes are huge. This American Prometheus has unleashed the power of the atom, with all that implies for the safety of the world. We also deal with the unfortunate consequences of having been in any way Communism-adjacent in one's past, and meet so many huge figures of the twentieth century during the course of the film. Yet the film, in its very structure based on two enquiries, one in the colourful past and the other in the monochrome "present" of 1959, focuses on both Oppenheimer himself and the mercurial Lewis Strauss, with both Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr giving extraordinary performances, both of them literally Oscar-winning.

Deeply clever. A massive blockbuster. Really cleaned up at the Oscars. Simultaneously popular and acclaimed, something that just doesn't happen in these post-COVID times where, let's face it, cinema as an institution seems to be in slow but real decline. But, while films like this remain possible, perhaps there's some degree of hope.

Dogma (1999)

 "Bethany, bless the sink!"

I watched, and enjoyed this film, many years ago but, as often happens as the decades pass- and I am not, you understand, in any way confessing to being middle aged- I remembered very litttle. Last night was pretty much a second first viewing.

And it's superb. As a comedy, it's bloody good, with a constant stream of laughs. Linda Fiorentino is perfect as the star. Chris Rock and Alan Rickman are both brilliant. George Carlin is perfect casting as a down-with-the-kids cardinal. Some dodgy angel wing CGI aside- and we can be forgiving, because it's 1999- there's not much wrong with this.

It is, of course, a very different beast from the very '90s slacker romantic comedies for which Kevin Smith had previously been known, although there's a fair bit of that sort of thing here. But the religious stuff is obviously going to come across as provocative, not least with Bethany working at an abortion clinic and (spoilers!) the plot requiring God's life support machine to be switched off. Casting Alanis Morissette as God is, of course, entirely uncontroversial.

And yet... I don't get this film to be mocking faith, or religion itself, in any way, but rather the reactionary and socially conservative structure that eventually inserts itself around every religion. I've never had any religious faith myself, I wasn't brought up with it and am simply unable to believe in something without empirical proof, but even I was moved by Bethany's drunken nostalgia for a time when she had a childlike, simple faith. But perhaps this film also hints at a deeper truth. Divine or not, this Jesus person seems to have been anything but conservative.