“A House of Dynamite” – We children born under communism were told about the “Ato-bomb”, but nothing has ever stressed me out more than the movie that just came out on Netflix
Kathryn Bigelow imagined an action in which a missile coming from the Pacific turns out to be a nuclear attack on the US, about to destroy Chicago and kill 10 million people. How the decision-makers in Washington, Moscow or Beijing act in such moments is something unbearable, because it is realistic, non-propagandistic and completely human.
The truth is that they were quite cruel to us. At the end of April 1986, when the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, they didn't tell us anything. On May 1st, people went outside for green grass, foot tennis and radiation. I had no idea what was going on. We are only going by rumours.
During all those years there was always talk of the danger of an atomic war. It was discussed who would strike first: the Americans or the Russians. They always talked about the need for disarmament, they were “fighting for peace”. But when a real atomic danger arrived, that of Chernobyl, the communists felt somewhere that people suffer. We are used to cruelty, but we have limits.
How the US reacts to a nuclear attack
Maybe something has stirred in me since then, or maybe it's the war in Ukraine, but “A House of Dynamite,” the film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Noah Oppenheim, stressed me like nothing else in terms of the atomic threat.
The film was released on Netflix on Friday. He describes, from the perspective of military or political leaders, in hard-cut angles, how the US chain of command acts when the country is under attack.
The origin of the attack is unclear. An isolated US base located in Alaska detects a missile rising in the Pacific. At first, it looks like a drill, maybe North Korea's, maybe someone else's. The rocket will crash somewhere in the Pacific, from where it took off.
“When you shoot a bullet with a bullet”
But, in a short time, the trajectory becomes clear: the nuclear missile flies towards the territory of North America. The army tries to intercept it with two missiles. Out of the “$50 billion” arsenal, as the Defense Secretary exasperatedly exclaims, only one interceptor missile manages to set off its contact device with the opposing bomb. But this too misses the interception. “Because you're hitting a bullet with a bullet,” says one of the White House military delegates. Technology advances, but it also advances for the attacker and the one trying to neutralize the attack, and the sky remains just as vast.
Within minutes, they realize that the target is Chicago. Too accurate, too big a city to be a coincidence. The Russians deny it. The Chinese are silent, but they also deny, also through the Russians, that they have any involvement.
Only, immediately, all the great powers raise their atomic-laden planes into the air and sink their submarines, ready to attack, for fear that the “other” will attack first. I know America will be hit and that it will fight back.
The world falls apart in minutes
The high-ranking military, in the bunkers, are pushing for a strong nuclear response. “As long as their missiles are still on the ground, otherwise they will fly towards us and we have already lost the war.” Everything unfolds in the cadence of minutes, to an extraordinary repetitive music.
From a morning when the coffee had to have a fixed number of sugar cubes, no more, no less, everything is going to last. In just a few minutes, the world slides into the gaping mouth of the apocalypse. And it's plausible. The life drains out of you in front of scenes from “A House of Dynamite”.
“It's Crazy” / “No, It's Reality”
The normal unfolds immediately. You blink and we're on the edge of the precipice. Moreover, the Secretary of Defense, played by Jared Harris, the main hero of the Chernobyl series, throws himself directly into the void, as if into an urban chasm.
And the US president, played by Edris Elba, says that “it's madness”. “No. It's reality,” a general retorts.
The speed with which we can lose everything is perhaps one of the shocks of the film. Normal is here until it's gone.
Variations on Atomic War – Presented to the President as a Restaurant Menu
The answer choices are presented to the President of the United States on colorful, laminated sheets with restaurant-style pictures that show “clearly” the illustrations of the dishes. The president looks at the sheets and immediately understands his choice: when he unleashes the nuclear bombs, he will cause relatively limited, moderate, or enormous destruction in the countries he will target. You understand that the other armies also have, in turn, their “menus” that they present to the presidents.
Another shock is the ending. It has already sparked controversy. “Is the ending to Netflix's apocalyptic thriller A House of Dynamite brilliant or a dodge?” asks Time.
We only live because some people had the sense of shame
Honestly, it's hard to understand how we managed to get away with the 50 years that hundreds of nuclear bombs were pointed at each other.
Historian John Lewis Gaddis, in his book on the Cold War, says that what kept us alive was that there were reasonable people in both camps.
Bureaucrats or military, communists or capitalists, presidents of different countries and political regimes, they knew they had grandchildren and, moreover, they felt the shame of “what history will say about us if we destroy the world.” Some people who cared, and had the ability to be ashamed, saved us. If you make this comparison, you really get scared after the last scene of the movie.
