“The message of the film is about we choose to build walls, and then sometimes we choose not to look over them, and I think that’s a crucial part of what we have in this film,” added Willers.
With a pained expression, Ukrainian war correspondent, photojournalist, and filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov walked into the interview room holding the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for his harrowing account of the early days of the 2022 Russian invasion “20 Days in Mariupol”—the first Oscar ever for a Ukrainian production.
I asked him about the jarring experience of being part of Hollywood’s awards season while his homeland continues to be under siege over two years after Mariupol was first occupied. Chernov noted that for him and his team it was never only about Mariupol, but rather about using the spotlight the film has granted them to bring attention to the other towns that have also been ravaged including Bakhmut, Mar’inka, Avdiivka, Soledar, and Popasna.
“It’s been a privilege, but it’s been a strange, painful experience at the same time. Because I’m standing here, [but] my heart is in Ukraine,” Chernov said. “My heart [is] with all the people who are now suffering and losing their lives and losing their homes and fighting for their land. Those who are in the jails. I don’t know how I can fix it. I don’t know whether I should try. But I hope that this win will just elevate this story to more people, and they will see us, and we will hear Ukrainians.”
The most invigorating thrill of the event came when, against most prognostications, Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. I’m almost certain my audible cheer, one of true shock and disbelief, resonated through the room. An artist concerned with the horrors of armed conflicts, Miyazaki famously skipped the 75th Academy Awards, where “Spirited Away” received the same honor, to protest the Iraq War.
In his latest Oscar-winner (and perhaps his final feature), the protagonist, 12-year-old Mahito, loses his mother to firebombing during World War II within the movie’s first few minutes. That catastrophic loss haunts him for the rest of his journey through a fantastical realm where both the dead and the unborn reside. Yet, even when given the chance to forego our troubled world for that more whimsical kingdom, Mahito chooses to return home, to bet on the flawed humanity of those he loves rather than giving in to despair.
That sentiment seems to be shared by all these stories about war, “Oppenheimer” included: if we humans are capable of causing so much suffering, it’s also on us to course correct.
