It is only black wee hours of a morning in the Mexican desert . Anticipation has reached a feverish high . Torrential rains have just let up , the ground is still wet with puddles and the air is redolent of wet earth . Inside a makeshift tent , people huddle around a microphone . A countdown has begun . 10 ,9 , 8 ... A mechanical voice intones . A sweaty hand hovers over a red switch .
Several kilometres into the desert , a general and his soldiers , a motley group of scientists , lie on mattresses wearing protective goggles . Someone rubs a lotion on his face , someone else ducks inside a jeep .
Anticipation peaks 5, 4, 3....
Somewhere deep into the uninhabited desert , an enormous metal ball . rigged with wires and plugs , hangs in balance atop a dizzyingly high scaffolding.
2,1.
The red button is pressed . The ball releases and hits the ground, blinding the world in an instant . Awash in deathly white light , the flash sweeps across the desert , followed by a deafening roar. The ground shakes and heaves ,an enormous cloud , mushroom shaped, rises from the ground , turns yellow , to orange , red and final black , raining ash and debris for a colossal circumference.
The soldiers and scientists cheer . Someone brings out drums and champagne . It is festival time. Three years of hard work , troubles and obstacles have paid off .
USA has triggered the arms race by testing the first nuclear bomb.
It was 16 th of July 1945 , some 210 miles from Los Alamos , New Mexico , and the world was at war . World war 2. Germany has capitulated but Japan was still holding out.
Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer begins with scenes of a hastily convened , lopsided trial . The" father of atomic bomb ", the physicist who " brought quantum mechanics to the American shores " was being tried , assiduously, for treason. He was being charged with having shared his secrets to building the bomb , with the Soviet union . That he was a reformed commie was established. He defends himself reluctantly and with great paucity of words . His vociferous opponents gloat as each of his former colleagues testify against him . The defences fall, one by one .
It is just a matter of time when Oppenheimer finds his security clearance stripped. However , at a nail biting finish, David Hill ( Rami Malek) turns the trial upside down. Good news follows . Oppenheimer ( a taciturn , gaunt , brilliant Cillian Murphy) is feted with his" spirited" wife ( Emily Blunt) standing by his side.
She having forgiven his repeated marital misdemeanors chooses to side with him when all else is lost.
Oppenheimer's loyalty takes a heavy toll on his soul as he tells the President of America ( Harry Truman played by the superb Gary Oldman), whispering hoarsely, painfully " I have blood on my hands". Truman promptly whips out a white hanky, remorseless, and proud. Henry Kissinger chuckles from his corner on the sofa , totally unaffected by the wave of guilt engulfing Robert Oppenheimer.
Taking great pains to convince authorities that it was Germans who deserved the bombing, more than the Japanese , as it was they " who were herding our folks into cattle trucks ", Oppenheimer is racked with opposing beliefs . A jew himself , he watches world war 2 unfold with horror.
Selected to head the prestigious and top secret " Manhattan project" , he finds his communist past constantly in cross hairs of the army and other american authorities.
He sets up a township in the New Mexican desert called the "Los Alamos", where the final testing of the bomb takes place.
Shortly afterwards, the two ( in) famous bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, much to the horror and grief of the maker of the bomb himself.
In the end, relevance is endowed just with Lord Krishna's words in the Bhagavad Gita
" I am become death the destroyer of the worlds.
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