CHERNOBYL - The 5-Part Miniseries: 4K Blu-ray (HBO, 2019) HBO Home Video
On Saturday, April 26, 1986, the No. 4 reactor at the
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat, north of the Ukrainian
Soviet Union, experienced a meltdown unlike anything known to man since he had
begun splitting the atom. What was not known at the time, due to Soviet
stone-walling, were the true consequences of the aftermath to local life and
land, but moreover, the vast and devastating consequences for decades yet to
follow in mounting casualties due to extreme exposure to radiation poisoning. It’s
not a pretty picture, folks, and one that director, Johan Renek’s brilliantly –
if somberly – addresses in Chernobyl (2019), HBO’s 5-part miniseries. Renek
treads lightly on capitalizing on what has since been classified as the world’s
worst nuclear disaster, eschewing the usual peaks and valleys of a
dramatization, and instead, allowing the epic and cringe-worthy horror of the
incident, mostly, to speak for itself, culled from a plethora of retrospective
research and introspective reflection. Chernobyl is a tour de force. Perhaps
for the first time, it lays out the real human tragedy of mankind’s arrogant playtime
with a technology it barely comprehends, but wields as indiscriminately as a
child tossing paper airplanes into the sky. In this case, what rains down on
the people of the Ukraine, and indeed, most of the continent of Europe is
cancer-inducing, radioactive fallout, so lethal that even suited up in every piece
of ‘protective’ clothing known to temper its effects, only a few moments of
exposure to its toxicity results in a drastic reduction to one’s life expectancy,
if not, in fact, a nightmarish and torturous death.
Chernobyl was created and written by Craig Mazin and features the
formidable talents of an exceptional ensemble, front lined by the appropriately
dour and pock-marked Jared Harris, as Deputy Director of the Kurchatov
Institute, Valery Legasov, whose early assessment of the ‘incident’ is
minimized, but who outlines the devastating breadth of its poisonous spread,
too late to prevent literally thousands from dying in hospitals, homes or
otherwise to vanish, expunged from the ‘official tally’, now buried in the
ledgers of a state-sanctioned cover-up. Other notables in the cast include a
stoic Stellan Skarsgård as Boris Shcherbina, the Council of Ministers’ deputy
chairman – personally sent by Gorbachev (David Dencik) to ‘assess’ the
situation firsthand. Then, there is Emily Watson, as whistleblower, Ulana
Khomyuk, a nuclear physicist from Minsk. More to satisfy the concision of time
restraints than artistic license, Khomyuk is a wholly fictional composite, her
views derived from a consensus of the many scientific personnel involved in the
clean-up process. Last, but not least, we meet Paul Ritter’s Anatoly Dyatlov, deputy
chief engineer, whose gross negligence resulted in his being one of three defendants
put on trial, the other two – his bosses, Viktor Bryukhanov (Con O’Neill), Chernobyl’s
manager, and Chief Engineer, Nikolai Fomin (Adrian Rawlins). The most
heartbreaking narrative thread in the series prominently features firefighter
and first responder, Vasily Ignatenko (Adam Nagaitis) and his wife, Lyudmilla (Jessie
Buckley). Indeed, the series opens with Lyudmilla, suddenly startled by the reactor
blast and blow-back occurring miles away at the plant; Ignatenko, summoned to
the hellish blaze engulfing the wreckage, and never to return home as a result
of his blind-sided heroism.
Chernobyl mesmerizes with its oozing trepidation, comparing the
disintegration of the plant to that of the unsuspecting innocents forever
altered by its nightmarish aftermath. Far from exploiting a national tragedy, Renek
and Mazin have plied their exceptional artistry to a very shrewd scrutiny of
the ruthlessly utilitarian camouflage perpetuated by the USSR as the ‘official
story’ to the world at large. Perhaps, even more terrifying than the actual
events, are the parallels to be gleaned by the dissemination of lies then, and
the exposure of a governmental nucleus, insular and crafting its own web of
insidious disinformation, liberally peddled as truth to the naïve masses in a
thoroughly obscene and appalling debate, meticulously designed to mellow, then,
obfuscate, and finally, obliterate the truth – replacing it with an opaque
ignorance wrapped in the enigma of a bizarre alter-theory to eventually ‘become’
a reasonable facsimile for truth itself. The ferocity with which Renek and
Mazin peel back the many layers of this repugnant smokescreen to an inescapable
crisis, eventually breaking it down to bedrock, exposes the brunt of needless
human sacrifice – usually, never-to-be discussed within the irreprehensible
high cost of state censorship. The series great virtue is its adherence to the facts;
also, its ability to be technically accurate, while dramatically enthralling.
Perhaps the greatest compliment paid Renek and Mazin came from Russian Culture
Minister, Vladimir Medinsky who openly praised the series as “masterfully made
with great respect for ordinary people.” Not everyone behind the largely ‘invisible’
but still very much present ‘iron curtain’ was pleased with the results.
Indeed, lawsuits were filed by the Communist Party against, Renek, Mazin and
the show’s producers, with unfounded accusations it was somehow, at best,
grotesque kabuki, shamelessly to promote the time-honored, denigrated western opinion
of the USSR.
The five episodes that comprise Chernobyl vary
in run time from 1 ½ hrs. to just a few minutes over a full hour. We open on
the second anniversary of the disaster. In a dingy and cramped apartment, Valery
Legasov, chief of the commission who investigated the disaster and oversaw its
clean-up, is quietly ruminating over a series of recorded tapes, accusing
engineer, Anatoly Dyatlov and his superiors, not only of gross negligence, but
of an insidious plot to minimize the devastation they knew to be true.
Following his recitation, Legasov hides the tapes inside a brick wall, then
quietly hangs himself. We regress to that fateful eve in 1986. Lyudmilla
Ignatenko is startled in the night by the knock-out explosion of Reactor 4 at
the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. In its immediate aftermath her husband,
Pripyat firefighter, Vasily Ignatenko is summoned from a dead sleep to do his
duty, exposing himself to the hellish retribution of the reactor’s core,
burning wildly out of control.
Meanwhile, in the control room, Dyatlov crudely dismisses
all evidence the core has exploded. Dyatlov orders subordinates to manually
lower control rods in a futile attempt to restore cooling to the core. As a
result of Dyatlov’s bizarre, teetering on evil shortsightedness, Vasily and the
small army of first responders on the scene begin to suffer from acute
radiation syndrome. Plant Director Bryukhanov, Chief Engineer Fomin and Dyatlov
surmise a hydrogen explosion is to blame. Despite the gravity of the situation,
the Pripyat Executive Committee minimizes the threat and prevents an immediate
evacuation of the citizens living nearby. Dyatlov orders night shift
supervisor, Aleksandr Akimov (Sam Troughton) and
senior engineer, Leonid Toptunov (Robert Emms) to manually open the
water valves to feed the reactor, knowing their exposure to the radiation will
be lethal. Deputy chief operational engineer, Sitnikov (Jamie Sives)
reports nuclear graphite on the ground. As Dyatlov succumbs to radiation poisoning,
Sitnikov is commanded to inspect the roof where he too receives a lethal dose
of radiation. From Moscow, Legasov is informed of the crisis, making his pilgrimage
to provide technical advice on how to proceed.
Hours after the explosion, scientist and nuclear physicist,
Ulana Khomyuk detects an eerie spike in radiation levels in Minsk. Her concerns
are dismissed by local authorities. Undaunted, Khomyuk begins her own private
investigation. Meanwhile, Pripyat’s hospital is overrun with the sick and the
dying, Lyudmilla learns the true extent of her husband’s illness. In Moscow,
Legasov attempts to impart the details to Mikhail Gorbachev. His efforts are
minimized by a rather nonchalant, Boris Shcherbina. Gorbachev orders both men
to journey to Chernobyl and report back to him. From their helicopter, Legasov identifies
graphite debris and the ominous glow from ionizing particles in the air,
indicating the core has been exposed. Still disbelieving Legasov, despite his
own lack of understanding as to how nuclear fission actually works, Shcherbina
confronts Bryukhanov and Fomin, who accuse Legasov of misinformation. Alas, no
one will refute chemical forces commander, General Pikalov (Mark Lewis Jones) whose high-range dosimeter readings unequivocally
prove Legasov is telling the truth. Legasov instructs the military to suppress
the fire with sand and boron and demands Pripyat be immediately evacuated. Upon
her arrival, Khomyuk forewarns a destructive steam explosion will occur if the
molten core establishes contact with the water in the flooded basement. Now, a
lethal mission to drain the basement is authorized.
Although successful, the threat of nuclear meltdown forces
Gorbachev to commit to the recruitment of coal miners from Tula, led by Andrei
Glukhov (Alex Ferns), to excavate a tunnel beneath the plant. Shcherbina
cautions Legasov, their every move is being scrutinized by the KGB. Now, Khomyuk
goes to Moscow to question Dyatlov. Alas, he remains uncooperative. Bribing her
way into the hospital, Lyudmilla bears witness to her husband’s hellish
deterioration. He literally decomposes as the radiation eats through his soft
tissue. Khomyuk witnesses Lyudmilla holding Vasily hand. Realizing Lyudmilla is
pregnant, Khomyuk threatens to report everything to the committee. Instead, she
is arrested by KGB agents and briefly imprisoned. Mercifully, Legasov arranges for
her release. Meanwhile, a mass mobilization gets underway to decontaminate Chernobyl
and its surrounding areas. Vasily dies, and, along with the other first
responders. Their remains are encased in zinc caskets, buried in a mass grave
poured over with concrete.
As part of the civilian relocation, a young draftee,
Pavel Gremov (Barry Keoghan) is dispatched, along with Soviet–Afghan War
veteran, Bacho (Fares Fares) to shoot and dispose of abandoned animals to limit
the spread of radioactive contamination. Meanwhile, General Nikolai Tarakanov (Ralph
Ineson) deploys a rover to clear the plant's roof for a shelter. Tarakanov issues
an executive order for 3,828 heavily suited liquidators, at 90-second
intervals, to clear the graphite by hand. Clandestinely, Shcherbina and Legasov
inform Khomyuk they must testify as experts in the trial of Dyatlov,
Bryukhanov, and Fomin. Legasov must also address the International Atomic
Energy Agency. It is a moment for him to do the right thing and expose the
deadly flaw in all the Soviet nuclear reactors. Khomyuk reveals Lyudmilla has
since given birth to a baby girl who died barely five hours later from extreme
radiation poisoning. While Khomyuk urges Legasov to tell the truth, Shcherbina
prudently implores him to reconsider what the government’s retaliation will be
after his confession. After much consternation, Legasov lies to the nuclear
committee in Vienna, but elects to tell the absolute and unvarnished truth at
Dyatlov’s trial. Due to a delay in the safety test, the reactor’s power spiked,
and, because of the reactor’s design flaw, it basically detonated a nuclear explosion
several hundred times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Legasov
explains how the government sanctioned web of lies leading up to the ‘event’
created the perfect storm for the disaster to occur. Afterward, Legasov is
detained and informed that henceforth, while the KGB will allow him to live, he
will be an isolated man with a ruined reputation as a scientist. Khomyuk and Shcherbina,
who is already dying slowly from his exposure to the radiation, look on as
Legasov is taken away from the courthouse. They will never see one another
again. As the credits roll, we are shown still photographs and newsreels of the
real-life key players in this travesty, with script to explain their respective
fates. Our story concludes with a somber dedication to all who ‘suffered and
sacrificed.’
We are still living in the aftermath of Chernobyl. One
of the series’ great virtues is that it takes the time to explain, in better
than rudimentary language, the chain of events, not only by which the disaster
occurred, but also the process behind nuclear fission itself. Something I
learned for the first time here, a significant fraction of generated heat came
from the radioactive decay of the accumulated fission byproducts. Chernobyl used
28,000 liters of water per hour as a coolant to prevent just such a meltdown. So,
a routine ‘test’ of the plant should not have caused the reactor to explode.
Except, the emergency core-cooling system was left disabled, resulting in an
unusual drop in reactor power, resulting in the dying fission byproduct
overheating. Overcompensating, the sudden increase in coolant created excess water
flow, lowering the overall core temperature and causing the neutrons to absorb
it, resulting in an extremely unstable reactor configuration. A power spike
then caused the core to overheat beyond any and all safety protocols designed
to diffuse it. Explosive steam pressure destroyed the reactor casing, with a
second and more powerful explosion dispersing the damaged core, ejecting hot, toxic
graphite into the night air, causing an ominous glow seen for miles, and
raining highly flammable particles down on the adjoining roof of the plant. Aside:
the roof was made of bitumen – a highly combustible material, and not up to
code standards.
The reactor was not shut down for another hour as
operators were given respirators and potassium iodide tablets and told to
continue working. The extent of radiation poisoning was kept hidden from the
first-responder firefighters too, told instead they were battling an electrical
blaze. But the ionizing radiation levels reached more than 20,000 roentgens per
hour. A lethal dose is 500 roentgens over 5 hours. Even more irresponsibly, the
city of Pripyat was not immediately evacuated, even as people began to fall ill,
suffering hellish headaches and uncontrollable fits of coughing and vomiting. To
suggest the Soviet state minimized the severity of the situation is a grotesque
understatement. Even after the delayed decision
was made to evacuate, residents were not fully briefed on the scope of their
exposure to toxic levels of radiation, but instead quietly informed to pack
light as they would be leaving their homes for a mere 3-days. However, the
detection of isolated fallout hotspots beyond the original ‘exclusion zone’ would
eventually result in more than 350,000 displaced persons. As radiation levels
set off alarms at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden over 1,000 kilometers
away, the Soviets were forced to admit an accident had occurred at Chernobyl
after initially denying it. Yet, even this admission was downplayed as minor
and insignificant. The reality, alas, was far more somber and deadly.
Nearly 100 tons of roof-top debris was removed to
enable the construction of a concrete and composite steel ‘sarcophagus’ to
entomb the reactor. Concerns over ‘loose’ contamination, carried by the wind,
wildlife and rainwater created its own series of challenges. Nearly 6-months after
the disaster, it was discovered an intensely radioactive mass more than two meters
wide had formed in the basement of reactor #4, composed of melted sand,
concrete, and considerable seepage of nuclear fuel to have escaped from the
reactor. The plant’s clean-up process took another 7-months. But the
decontamination of the outlining abandoned cities, towns and farms, sprayed
with Bourda – a gooey polymerizing fluid designed to stick to radioactive dust
and, when dry, to be peeled off in large ‘carpet-like’ tracks, later buried,
took years. Arguably, justice for the people impacted by such shortsightedness
would never be realized.
The resultant trial in July, 1987 only succeeded in
bringing the actions of Anatoly Dyatlov, Viktor Bryukhanov, Nikolai Fomin, Boris
Rogozhin and Aleksandr P. Kovalenko under a microscope. Dyatlov was convicted of criminal
mismanagement and sentenced to 10 years of which he served only three. But
perhaps most astonishing of all was the declassification of KGB documents in
1991, pointing to a harrowing laundry list of negligent cover-ups at Chernobyl
between 1971 and 1988, including 29 near-emergency situations brought on by
gross negligence and lack of competence on the part of its personnel. This, coupled
with what is only now beginning to be known about structural deficiencies in
the nation’s RBMK-1000 reactor design, and…well…Chernobyl was literally an
accident waiting to happen. And while, by certain conservative estimates, the
exposure of its core released only about 1/100th of the total amount
of radioactivity created by all the Cold War nuclear bomb tests exerted
throughout the 1950’s and 60’s, the impact of its disseminating cloud of fallout
nevertheless reached far and wide across the European continent, scattered across
the Alps, the Welsh mountains and the Scottish Highlands with added groundwater
contamination, to directly affect more than a million people. The truest
aftermath, however, will likely never be known.
At the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards, Chernobyl
won for Outstanding Limited Series, Outstanding Directing, and Outstanding
Writing. The series was also justly honored at the 77th Golden Globes,
winning for Best Miniseries, with Skellan Skarsgård taking home Best Supporting
Actor honors. Despite its adherence to facts, Chernobyl does take
certain artistic liberties in telling its tale, and these have since been
loudly criticized. Chiefly, Legasov was not present at the penultimate trial,
and, the so-called ‘Bridge of Death’, purportedly used by Pripyat spectators on
the eve of the explosion, all of whom later died, remains an urban legend. Some
have suggested Bryukhanov, Fomin and Dyatlov were unfairly demonized as necessary
scapegoats for dramatic purposes. Also, the scene in which the miners strip to
nothing to cope with the extreme heat was, by all accounts, a fabrication.
Although Plant engineer, Oleksiy Breus did agree, the miners wore very little clothing,
they were never entirely naked. UCLA
doctor, Robert Gale, who partook of the post-investigation in Moscow, has also
disputes the filmmaker’s inference of a Soviet cover-up, to prolong and endanger
citizens merely to save face on the international stage. Finally, Vice Director of the Ukrainian National
Chernobyl Museum, Anna Korolevskaya, who acted as a consultant on the series, criticized
the filmmakers for not being able to set aside their western biases towards
Soviet culture.
Chernobyl’s release on 4K Blu-ray via HBO Home Video is a
welcomed sign the company may be once again gaining interest in physical media.
HBO’s hi-def output of late has not exactly been copious or stellar. This transfer
is culled from a new 2160p UHD scan and offers a distinct advantage over the
standard Blu-ray of almost a year ago. The intended look of this HBO series is bleak
and drab, favoring a greenish-blue palette. On Blu-ray, this was merely murky and
dark. In 4K it exhibits the same qualities, only tweaked and refined to a
finite precision, revealing far more detail throughout. Black levels are excellent
with no crush. While colors are subdued, they somehow look crisper in 4K, with
some wonderfully reproduced grain added digitally to give the whole image the
illusion of a gritty, documentary film-like quality. We get the same DTS 5.1
Blu-ray audio mix – no Atmos, for added effect. As this is primarily a dialogue-driven drama,
ambient sounds become all the more important and are impressively rendered.
Extras are an extreme disappointment. Honestly, there are so many documentaries
and featurettes on the real Chernobyl, would it have killed HBO to license a
few of them for inclusion herein? We get the same extras as on the Blu-ray – puff
pieces with barely any sound bites from the actors, and only the most
threadbare commentary from cast and crew discussing the real-life incident or
their participation in dramatizing it for the screen. Frankly, nothing here
rates anything better than a first impression of being appallingly second rate
and thoroughly disposable! Bottom line: Chernobyl is a riveting
docu-drama with a somber message about the futility of man, especially when his
reach decidedly outclasses the capability of his grasp. Depressing, but
powerful, Chernobyl is a superb miniseries not to be missed. At times, it
is difficult to sit through, due to the graphic nature of it blood-curdling
devastation. Very highly recommended!
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
5+
VIDEO/AUDIO
5+
EXTRAS
1
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