‘Barbie’ is the absolute opposite of ‘Oppenheimer’, but inside it is a much more corrosive heart

The funniest thing about the ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon is, without a doubt, how radically opposed the two proposals that make it up are. The seriousness (beyond: solemnity) of ‘Oppenheimer’ is in the opposite range to the colorful festivity of ‘Barbie’. And that is precisely why they fit perfectly: areas not covered by one are controlled by the other, and vice versa. Go see them the same afternoon and you will go like an exhalation (well: three hours of Nolan and two of Gerwig) through the entire spectrum of sensations that a film can generate.

The surprise is that this is not completely true. Here we have already tasted both experiences, and we guarantee surprises… in both. If about ‘Oppenheimer’ we commented that even the most die-hard fan of Nolan’s visual power can be overwhelmed by a trial film (with the volume turned up, yes: the most thunderous appearances before investigative commissions in history)… about ‘Barbie’ it is worth noting that viewers expecting a more or less acid satire of the toy industry are going to find a more corrosive pop feminism bombshell than it appears.

Both movies are top-notch visual contrivance. The technical staff in both is absolutely impressive, but curiously, in both cases it does not give rise to such juicy films inside. Nolan’s film sometimes goes around the conventions of the telefilm biopic, even though it comes with a great apparatus of sound fanfare and atomic abstraction to underline the interludes. Nolan’s forte has never been the background of his movies, but It is the first time that he has fallen into certain propaganda abysses to sell the motorcycle of the conscientious warmonger and genocide as a lesser evil thanks to his boundless talent for image.

‘Barbie’, meanwhile, has a comparable team of visual magicians behind it (photography by Rodrigo Prieto -nominated for an Oscar three times-, production design by Sarah Greenwood -six times- and costumes by Jacqueline Durran -winner twice -), but Greta Gerwig’s previous trajectory is very different from Nolan’s. She is an indie director, combative and with two films (‘Little Women’ and ‘Lady Bird’) that talk about the same thing as ‘Barbie’: women who become aware of themselves.

Girls just wanna have fundamental rights

‘Barbie’ starts (with more grace than expected, it must be said) as a satire of the traditional image of the Mattel doll. From there, the film follows a scheme of a journey of discovery and a subsequent return to transform everything that does not separate at any time from the pre-established schemes of a Pixar-style film, for example. But from the first moment he introduces forceful charges of depth in his speech.

For example, in the hilarious voice-over of Helen Mirren giving Mattel her first wicked smack: Barbies live in their plastic world believing that through her influence “real” women have been able to become whatever they want to be. Because in the end that is the message they have always sent, since the fifties. Or not? As Ken (hilarious Ryan Gosling, best of the film opposite Kate McKinnon) feverishly checks out when he lands in California, not quite. It turns out that in the real world, patriarchy is what takes. And it can be adapted to multiple contexts.

The combinatorics of real women (like the teen who calls Barbie to her face a “fascist”) with plastic dolls gives rise to the most direct and combative messages of the film, and those that will undoubtedly generate the most controversy. Even among the direct recipients of the film, putting the theme of “bimbo feminism” on the table. In any case… can a commercial film, a product based on an IP for girls contain a message that bares its teeth and openly declares war on the concepts of femininity that we see in practically the entire world? commercial cinema?

It’s a good debate, and one worth having. Who does not raise it is Christopher Nolan, and his two female characters of his in ‘Oppenheimer’ that only serve (his words) so that we can see how irresistibly magnetic its protagonist is. ‘Barbie’ could be a plastic film financed by a major of the cinema and a multinational toy company, with all the problems that this entails, but at the moment it is the only one on the billboard that deals with problems that affect the day-to-day life of its viewers.

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