Brief 11: Checking 'Chernobyl'

 

I’ve had a little more time to watch TV lately. Everyone was raving about ‘Chernobyl’ last year so I watched that.  It was great, though I think those calling it one of the greatest TV shows of all time are going a little far. All of the acting was tremendous, and it reminded me that almost no one has been putting in such superb performances in quality pieces for the last 25 years as Emily Watson. She’s never not great, and never seems to be in anything which isn’t excellent.

What it particularly made me think about was how close to the truth a drama should be, if it is about something that really matters. I usually don’t mind at all and completely understand the need to twist and stretch the truth for dramatic purposes, always find it pretty gratuitous (eg with ‘The Irishman’) when someone close to real events is reeled out to say “this is a disgrace, it didn’t happen like that”. Who cares?

But, actually, with ‘Chernobyl’, when I read up a bit at the end, I was a bit disappointed at how far from the truth it was in some significant details. Without giving too much away, there is a major character who is not a real person, the “villains” are over-villainised, and the dramatic denouement is pure fiction, even to the extent of whether the main character was even there (I guess that gives a lot away, oh well).

Why has it bothered me with this show and not others? I think creators are, and should be, beholden to how well known the event is, how nuanced the truth is, how important the event is, how much they put weight, in how they shoot and frame the event, on chronological and geographical detail.

The Chernobyl Disaster was 34 years ago. We all know a bit, but not everything, about it. It really matters. I recall it was one of the first news stories that, as such, mattered to me. We discussed it in school, along with the Herald of Free Enterprise, Terry Waite etc. As I was growing up, I couldn’t fully grasp how and why it stayed in the popular consciousness more than other disasters, why it was such a deep and major moment in human history and why it’s effects are still being felt today.

This TV show, dramatization though it is, has to be seen in that context, as an educational, historical document of a still-raw event. You can play fast and loose with some stuff to do with US gangsters, especially if you frame it that you may be playing fast and loose (which ‘The Irishman’ does) – ‘Chernobyl’ asserts itself like it’s the truth. It does so compellingly. But, I just felt, in this case, the truth does matter.