The Nuclear Path of the Samurai – Weekend
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The disturbing series “Those Days” about the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant has been released on Netflix. The Japanese disaster could have become a second Chernobyl, but, fortunately, it didn’t – and the new series falls far short of the bar set by Craig Mazin.
“Where do I start talking about those days…” – mutters the head of the station Yoshida (Koji Yakusho), thanks to which Fukushima did not become the second Chernobyl. Yoshida died of cancer two years after the disaster, but said that the disease was not due to exposure, but to the stress of “those days” – and the fact that he smoked a lot! But in the frame he will never smoke – this is now a taboo.
On March 11, 2011, Japan’s largest earthquake of magnitude nine occurs. In the office where the Fukushima personnel monitor control devices, cabinets fall and the suspended ceiling falls off. Disciplined white-collar workers do not panic, but routinely climb under the tables – they were taught this from childhood. Someone’s voice sounds: “Let’s go to the earthquake-resistant building according to the instructions.” The shelter stands at a height of 30 meters above the sea, and the six power units of the station are 10 meters high, and they are not earthquake-resistant, and here the question inevitably arises: why? After the aftershocks, Yoshida grabs the emergency instructions, but there is no provision for disabling all sensors.
The tragedy will not keep you waiting: two clerks are blocked in the disinfection chambers due to a power outage. Following the tremors, a tsunami more than ten meters high hits Fukushima – and the station’s safety margin was designed for three. In a disaster movie, a giant water wall would have looked terribly impressive, but here it’s just scary: in claustrophobic shots, two guys are choking, who are covered by a wave.
Backup generators, according to the same wise calculations, are located not on the upper floors, but in the basements, and are also flooded. The sensors are dead, and whether the reactors are cooling down can be found out only by sending live troops to them. “The main thing is that this crap doesn’t squeak,” says a volunteer from the control room, pointing to a Geiger counter. God only knows how many sieverts the “suicide squad” will grab from the reactor, which must manually open the ventilation valves. No one in Japan has been exposed to such exposure since the 1999 accident at a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. An employee of the commission on nuclear safety flips through the report – pure horror: in a victim of radiation sickness, the meat lags behind the bones. “It is said that the employee who compiled the report later had PTSD.” “Yes, that employee is me.” The series is co-directed by horror filmmaker Hideo Nakata, who directed Calls and Dark Waters, and this is the only episode where he allows himself to be creepy.
But in terms of the level of drama, the Japanese series is no match for Craig Mazin’s Chernobyl – the meticulous Japanese do not deviate from the chronology and tediously record the events of all five critical days. But they heartily honor their own bureaucracy: Prime Minister Naoto Kan (Fumiyo Kohinata) sounds the alarm in Tokyo, senior bosses yell at subordinates, they memorize bows and scribble reports, but they are ahead of the frames from the TV with columns of smoke from power units. The selfless Yoshida is harassed via video link by the president of the company that built the station and the minister of nuclear safety, forbidding him to use seawater to cool the reactors “while we’re here in conference.” Yoshida would defy a direct order—an almost unthinkable thing in the Japanese hierarchy—to take off his pants and turn his back on a video link with his superiors. His decision is believed to have prevented the release of radioactive fuel. Many Fukushima employees demonstrated samurai stamina and were ready to die in order not to lead to emissions, and the shouts of the authorities were clearly superfluous here.
It’s understandable why Netflix, serving progressive agendas, ordered the series now: it’s important to convince the public of the need for green energy. As entertainment, this spectacle does not pull – but what kind of entertainment is there. By the way, the nuclear accident Kyshtym-57, the next in terms of catastrophic consequences (the sixth level compared to the seventh at Fukushima and Chernobyl), is also ours, and in the hands of skilled filmmakers, it would easily surpass the Japanese series. And not for the sake of a green agenda, but simply as an illustration of arrogance and irresponsibility: humanity enthusiastically fits into stories with poorly calculated consequences, each time surprised when a ten-meter wave then rushes.
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