Oscar Best Picture winner Oppenheimer was released on Friday, March 29 in Japan, where its subject – the man who masterminded the creation of the atomic bomb – is a highly sensitive and emotional topic. The US blockbuster hit screens in the United States and many other countries in July at the same time as Barbie, inspiring a viral phenomenon dubbed "Barbenheimer" by moviegoers. Yet while "Barbie" was released in Japan in August, "Oppenheimer" was conspicuously absent from cinemas for months.
No official explanation was offered at the time, fueling speculation that the film was too controversial to be shown in Japan, the only country to have ever been targeted by nuclear weapons. Around 140,000 people died in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki when the United States dropped atomic bombs on the cities in August 1945, days before the end of World War II.
At a large cinema in central Tokyo where Oppenheimer was showing on Friday, there was none of the prominent promotional material that might be expected for a global megahit. Instead, only one small poster advertised the film, which was shot on a $100 million budget and collected nearly $1 billion at box offices worldwide.
The film tells the story of US physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who oversaw the bomb's invention. It drew rave reviews and was the most decorated title at this month's Oscars, scooping seven awards, including Best Director for Christopher Nolan and Best Actor for star Cillian Murphy.
Yet in Hiroshima, the city devastated by the first nuclear bomb, the biopic's Academy Awards success met a mixed reaction. Kyoko Heya, president of the city's international film festival, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) after the awards ceremony that she had found Nolan's movie "very America-centric." "Is this really a movie that people in Hiroshima can bear to watch?" she asked.
Today the city is a thriving metropolis of 1.2 million people, but the ruins of a domed building still stand as a stark reminder of the horrors of the attack, along with a museum and other somber memorials. Heya said that, after much reflection, "I now want many people to watch the movie." "I'd be happy to see Hiroshima, Nagasaki and atomic weapons become the subject of discussions thanks to this movie," she said.
Last year, viral "Barbenheimer" memes sparked anger online in Japan, where media reports have highlighted critics who say the film does not show the harm caused by the bombs. "There could have been much more description and depiction of the horror of atomic weapons," bomb survivor and former Hiroshima mayor Takashi Hiraoka, 96, said at a special screening in the city earlier this month.