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 SkarsgÃ¥rd 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 SkarsgÃ¥rd 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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