Culture | War wounds

In Japan “Oppenheimer” is causing consternation

The blockbuster may never be released in the world’s third-largest film market

A black and white photo of a man looking at the damaged remains of the Urakami Catholic Cathedral in Nagasaki.
Man-made destructionImage: AP
|Tokyo

THE ATOMIC bomb has been dropped, and the mood at the Los Alamos Laboratory is jubilant. J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the American physicist responsible for the weapon’s creation, appears in front of his cheering colleagues. “It’s too soon to tell what the results of this bombing are,” he declares, before making a ghastly taunt: “But I’ll bet the Japanese didn’t like it.”

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “War wounds”

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