Decision making in an emergency situation is critical. Any failure in the speed when taking them or in the direction in which they are taken without taking into account all the factors can trigger disaster. It is, to some extent, understandable when you don’t react perfectly to an extraordinary and potentially disastrous situation. Less understandable is the leading in those situations that can make something already really serious worse.
It is, without a doubt, one of the things that float throughout the story that we see told in 5 magnificent and excellent episodes in this essential HBO Max miniseries. Made by the same thinking mind that is now going to give us the ambitious adaptation of ‘The Last of Us’ for television, ‘Chernobyl’ offers a story as well ambitious and devastating than those amazing games.
chaos unleashed
Craig Mazin, who until then had served as a “journeyman” filmmaker on comedy projects such as ‘The Specials‘ either ‘superhero movie‘, gave a radical change to his career with a podcast that sought investigate the decisions made during the disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the people who responded in one of the most urgent situations the Ukrainian region had experienced.
April 26, 1986. A chain of bad decisions before a reactor on the verge of collapse leads to a massive explosion that released radioactive material into the air in the Soviet regions of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. One of the greatest tragedies produced in history, told through several of those in charge of resolving how to mitigate unstoppable chaos and find out how it could have happened.
The series is chilling for multiple reasons. It is evident that this tragedy took place in reality, and many people were physically and mentally destroyed by the radiation released. Then there is the tone, typical of the highest quality disaster movies made with the exquisiteness of the prestigious television that characterizes HBO. Technical expertise in photography and effects creates images that do not take off and shake you.
‘Chernobyl’: the hidden truth
Because there are also very authentic horror elements circulating throughout the series, including the trips to the region where the explosion occurred and the hospitals that had to respond to the emergency. There are also sequences of incredible tension, such as exploration in the area of greatest danger from radioactivity, where protection is so rudimentary that even you yourself feel in danger.
There are many more technical achievements, such as the music as creepy as it is delicious by Hildur Guðnadóttir or the direction of Johan Renck. And then we have its extraordinary cast with the incredible trio of Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård and Emily Watson. Everyone praises the great work of Mazin in the script, which makes a conscientious exploration of the disaster and makes a incredible plea of the need to tell the truthvalid both in the most repressive times of the Soviet Union and in the current West trapped by the post-truth.
In Espinof | The best miniseries in the history of HBO