The actual people sent into one of the most radioactive places on Earth, and the cameras that followed them.
Thx to Margarida Bastos of Collider for first pointing this one out.
Trailer for “Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes”
You Can’t Make This Sh!t Up
- After Reactor No. 4 exploded on April 26, 1986, people in nearby Pripyat went on with their day as deadly radiation spread. Kids played outside. People stood watching the burning plant.
- Officials waited about 36 hours to evacuate Pripyat. Around 2,200 buses arrived to take people away. Residents were told to pack for only a few days. Most never came home.
- Radiation was so high that cleanup workers called “liquidators” could spend only seconds on some rooftops. When robots stopped working, men ran onto the roofs with shovels. Some strapped sheets of lead to their bodies for protection.
Watch “Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes”
You can currently watch “Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes” on HBO Max, Prime, Hulu, Disney+, and Starz.
Ratings:
- My Rating: 92/100
- IMDB Rating: 7.9/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Ratings: 88/100 (Users); 100/100 (Critics)
Director’s Note: James Jones directed and produced this roughly 96-minute British documentary. Instead of recreating Chernobyl, Jones and his team dug through state archives and other collections in Ukraine and Russia looking for footage shot during and after the disaster.
Release Date: February 28, 2022 (UK); June 22, 2022 (U.S. TV/streaming release)
Other Unique Stuff
- Some of the cameramen filming the cleanup were working right beside the liquidators. So when the documentary takes us near the reactor, the cameraman filming what we’re seeing was taking a radiation risk too.
- Plant engineer Oleksiy Breus is one of the voices used to explain what workers experienced inside Chernobyl.
- Another survivor, Oleksandr Syrota, was a child living in Pripyat. His memories help show what the disaster looked like from the point of view of a kid who didn’t fully understand why his city was suddenly being abandoned.
Wrap Up:
I’ve seen plenty about Chernobyl, but watching the actual liquidators run onto that roof is something else. “Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes” makes a disaster we all know feel frighteningly new again.
Thanks for reading!
Heather Fenty, Guest Writer, Daily Doc