A tense documentary that combines archived visual material from the former Soviet Union with old and contemporary interviews. “Chernobyl: Lost Tape” Reconstruct the 1986 nuclear disaster from the perspective of the people who existed during its devastation.
Ludmila Inatenko (HBO’s drama miniseries Jessie Buckley) went to the factory by her husband, a firefighter and a resident of the area who was pregnant at the time of the catastrophe. I heard from the character’s inspiration). Chernobyl engineer Oleksiy Breus says he will go to work the next day without even knowing what happened. He hears about the slowness of evacuation (there is talk of children going to the playground instead of evacuating indoors) and seeing a flash of images allegedly coming from the film itself recording the radiation. I’m horrified.
Some of the most powerful footage includes a “liquidator” who was responsible for containment and cleansing in the months following the accident. I dismiss the story of radiation as nonsense. Shortly thereafter, the movie shows a flashy video of them scraping debris, perhaps absorbing lethal doses.
It was initially stated that the Soviet Union wanted to record the aftermath of the accident and spread the story of heroic rescue, but you might wonder if you probably have a video camera at that moment. Hmm. However, James Jones’s “Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes” does not extensively explore the history of its components. I’m less interested in the tape itself than in the act of acting as a witness.
Chernobyl: Lost Tape
Unrated. Ukrainian, Russian, English, with subtitles. Execution time: 1 hour 31 minutes. Watch on the HBO platform.