Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.5

Chernobyl Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 9, 2019

There’s a completely horrifying sequence relatively early in Alain Resnais’ acclaimed masterpiece Hiroshima mon amour where actual newsreel (or at least archival) video of survivors of the American atomic blasts against Japan is shown, and the gruesome injuries on display are both beyond disturbing and (at least for this particular viewer) unforgettable. There may not be anything quite as graphic presented in Chernobyl, which is not to say this unsettling miniseries documenting what is probably the greatest disaster of the nuclear age (other than bomb dropping, that is) shirks from offering “up close and personal” looks at exactly what radiation poisoning does to humans and other living beings. What's perhaps even more disturbing about the actual radiation leak and subsequent horrifying poisoning is the reaction by officials that this stunning "docudrama" reveals, and that alone could very well send significant chills up and down the spines of anyone who expects those in charge to respond appropriately to disasters. The less than honest approach the Soviet government took to the disaster is almost frighteningly monolithic as presented in this miniseries, but Chernobyl almost ups the ante from the get go by depicting the suicide of a major player in the scandal, a man who took his own life at least in part due to his shocked realization that not only were obstacles put in place during the disaster itself, an almost willful "ignorance is bliss" attitude seemed to penetrate to the highest echelons of Soviet society that meant that the Chernobyl meltdown could in fact be repeated one day due to the very lack of attention to details that contributed to the horror.

As is discussed openly in some of the supplements included on this release, an overt decision was made not to mask the fact that one of the focal characters of the drama, Soviet chemist and nuclear expert Valery Legasov (Jared Harris), who was assigned the task of dealing with whatever cleanup could be achieved after the disaster, did in fact commit suicide about two years after the reactor malfunction. That opens Chernobyl on an obviously troubling note, one which is quickly followed up by a “flashback” (in more ways than one, actually) documenting the explosion of Reactor 4 at Chernobyl at the somewhat ironic time of 1:23:45 in the morning. The early part of the drama focuses on the understandable confusion that confronted the workers at Chernobyl, but even here there are more than mere hints that some folks understood all to well what had happened, and were eager not to let that truth “radiate” out to the public at large.

The Soviet tendency toward “groupthink” is ably documented in several early vignettes, some involving Boris Scherbina (Stellan Skarsgård) and ostensibly better known pols like Mikhael Gorbachev (David Dencik). The miniseries does dip into “fictionalization” territory with what one supplement describes as a “composite character”, Ulana Khomyuk (Emily Watson), a nuclear physicist who discerns a rise in radiation in her hometown of Minsk and who soon travels to Chernobyl, which she suspects is the cause of the increase. In the meantime, Legasov’s analysis of the situation, initially pooh poohed by authorities, turns out to be correct, and the upshot is that things are even worse than imagined, something that Khomyuk herself makes even more problematic when she discusses possible ramifications of the reactor core ever makes contact with nearby water supplies.

There’s a kind of zombiefied quality to many of the characters depicted in Chernobyl, and it frankly gives this often mesmerizing if incredibly upsetting miniseries a weird, surreal quality that is nonetheless decidedly visceral. There are heroes (and heroines) galore throughout this story, but they are often struggling against seemingly insurmountable odds, not simply the daunting process of trying to discern what actually happened at Chernobyl, and to try to “fix” it (as much as possible), but what might be termed an almost genetic predisposition on the part of some of the Soviet apparatchik to not disclose to the public the extent of the tragedy.

An old adage attributed to the philosopher George Santayana states, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," which may serve as an overall cautionary epigram for this entire minseries, except that it also works within the context of the story itself in terms of what went before this particular tragedy, since Chernobyl was the result of designers and other "authorities" repeating history (so to speak), or at least previous mistakes. Chernobyl is a chilling piece of filmmaking, one with a glut of really powerful performances and an ominous feeling of dread that penetrates virtually every nook and cranny of the piece like, well, radiation.

Chernobyl Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Chernobyl is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.00:1. The IMDb lists Arri Alexa Minis as having digitally captured the imagery, and I was actually a bit surprised to see that the IMDb lists this as having been finished at a 4K DI. That may be slightly misleading for some "spec readers" who would naturally expect an incredibly well detailed transfer bursting with precise visuals, but as can be gleaned from several of the screenshots I've uploaded to this review, huge swaths of this story play out in near darkness, or at best in dimly lit (at times flickering) light, so that fine detail in particular can be pretty variable at times. The entire palette is kind of drab and wintry a lot of the time, with little traditional "pop", and with an emphasis on cool or neutral tones like grays and greens. In decent lighting conditions, detail levels are quite good, though director Johan Renck and cinematographer Jakob Ihre tend to favor midrange shots a lot of the time, so that (again) fine detail can be somewhat variable. There are no issues with compression anomalies or noise, something that's especially welcome given the glut of dark (as in dimly lit) material on hand here.

Chernobyl Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Chernobyl features a well done DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that is often quite subtle, given the "combustible" nature of the story, but which does burst into some energetic activity especially in some of the tunnel digging or other crowded interior scenes. A lot of this piece tends to be on the "talky" side, and as such immersion is generally limited to occasional ambient environmental effects. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout this problem free track.

Chernobyl Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• Inside the Episodes* (1080p; 7:20) offers some interesting overviews with interviews and behind the scenes footage:

  Episode 1: 1:23:45

  
  

  Episode 2: Please Remain Calm

  
  

  Episode 3: Open Wide, O Earth

• What is Chernobyl? (1080p; 1:38) gives a very brief history lesson, for those who are unaware.


• Meet the Key Players* (1080p; 5:40) features introductions to the focal characters in the piece:

  Jared Harris as Valery Legasov: The Professor

  
  

  Stellan Skarsgård as Boris Scherbina: The Apparatchik

  
  

  Emily Watson as Ulana Khomyuk: The Scientist

Disc Two

• Inside the Episodes* (1080p; 6:56)

  Episode 4: The Happiness of All Mankind

  
  

  Episode 5: Vichnaya Pamyat

• Behind the Curtain - Director Johan Renck (1080p; 1:37) is a short featurette offering snippets of the miniseries and equally quick interviews.


• Script to Screen - The Divers (1080p; 1:23) is another brief featurette looking at some of the unsung heroes of this tale.


• Pivotal Moment: The Trial (1080p; 2:12) looks at what amounts to maybe a bit of hope in an otherwise hopeless story.

*Both Inside the Episodes and Meet the Key Players offer Play All options, but they have in fact been authored "together", so that starting anywhere but the final section constitutes a "Play All" or at least "Play Subsequent Chapters" in essence.

Chernobyl Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I've just recently returned from a beautiful European vacation where my wife and I visited several places we hadn't ventured to previously, including northern England (where my father was born) and Scotland, and one of the things that really surprised me on our train trips through this gorgeous countryside was the prevalence of some atomic power plants off in the distance, something that those of us on the west coast of the United States don't really have that much experience seeing (Trojan, the closest plant to my hometown of Portland, was decommissioned several years ago). Perhaps because many of us in the United States haven't been that "up close and personal" with any nuclear power plants, Chernobyl is kind of ironically all the more devastating of a miniseries, one with a full display of foibles leading to tragedy, but a certain underlying heroism trying desperately to peek through and rectify things. This is not an easy piece to watch, but it is unbelievably compelling. Technical merits are solid, and Chernobyl comes Highly recommended.