Chernobyl- Miniseries
I am following certain travel handles on social media and saw some posts in which the host visited Pryp’yat (a town which was created near Chernobyl and to accommodate people/family which serviced the nuclear power plant) and showed the remains of the ghost town and the current state. I have always liked history and particularly the movies/TV series made on true events.
These posts caused some impact and started reading about the Chernobyl nuclear plant blast that happened in 1986. I was in my teens and had access to news papers, but I don’t carry enough knowledge about this very important event/accident that happened during our life time and started reading Wikipedia page. Intention is to understand more about the accident and the reading gave me good information.
Even though the page talked/used a lot of scientific jargons, I managed to get a decent understanding about the accident. As you may agree, reading a Wikipedia page gives you information but it doesn’t cause enough impact/affect like reading a biography or memoir.
Searched and there are some movies (believe in Russian language) and TV series that have been made on this topic. One of them is called “Chernobyl-Miniseries” and made in 2019 (5 episodes and total run time of around 5 hours). Decided to watch it considering it’s in English and made by Hollywood team (so expect that to be some action oriented episodes and not a documentary).
The series is about the following:
- What actually Happened.
- How it affected certain people’s life.
- Investigation on how it happened and what caused the accident.
Very gripping & Riveting.
The Screenplay is really good and the director has ensured no dragging at all. It’s bit slow in patches but you don’t realize that because of the crisp screenplay and acting.
Did feel that its been made by Americans and hence they tried to blame everything on Russians from every possible angle. Felt the Hollywood touch & feel with the language used and portrayal of some of the characters and felt unnatural. We don’t know much about the Russians way of living and hence felt this aberration.
part from the above, it’s brilliant series and a must watch. It even helped me understand the science factors involved and believe I have some understanding about how such nuclear plant works 😜😜😜. Good work by the director (and his team) in getting all the technical things simplified and gave a wonderful watching experience.
Pryp’yat is a ghost town now and *some 30 Square kms of earth will not become habitable for the next 20,000 years*. Just try to understand this statement and you will understand the accident in better terms. Believe the Ukraine government allows visitors now to see the ghost city (excluding the exclusion zone of 30 Square kms) and will visit the place one day to see it with my own eyes. Some 600,000 people were used to clear the debris and built a protective cover over the impact site (in 7 months time) and the clean up work happened for more than a decade.
Erstwhile Soviet Union and current Russia/Ukraine claims only 31 deaths but the series claims that to be in thousands. Hollywood depiction might not be accurate and they would have added some “Enormity” to the facts. You might have to read more articles to understand the true nature of the impact but I am ignoring that for the time being. Gives you a decent picture on how the closed walls of communism worked and you can relate it to the current state of the country which manufactured COVID-19.
Recommend this one to watch and am sure you will agree with my take. If you ask me to give a rating, then I would go for 4 out of 5.
