OPPENHEIMER
Los Alamos, New Mexico, US
The dramatic core of Christopher Nolan’s biopic about J Robert Oppenheimer, “the father of the atomic bomb”, is the tale of the WW2-era Manhattan Project. This top-secret, US government mission, led by Oppenheimer, was a race to develop and deploy the first nuclear weapons before Nazi Germany could.
The main work took place in the isolated town of Los Alamos, New Mexico, which had been taken over by the US in 1943 as the spot where scientists could, in secret, design, build and test the weapons. For the movie, the crew went where the real work was done, filming extensively in New Mexico and in Los Alamos in particular.
Today, Los Alamos is a town of about 13,000 people. Several sites associated with its history are protected as part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. The whole park is, in fact, split across three locations. The other two are in Hanford, Washington, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where plutonium and uranium needed to build the bombs were produced respectively. The Los Alamos section is where Oppenheimer and his team lived and worked.
The park is free to visit and a walking tour will cover many interesting spots, starting at the visitors’ centre with exhibits about the project. You can also see the Ice House, where the core of The Gadget — the first bomb to be successfully detonated — was assembled; Ashley Pond, around which many of the now-gone project buildings were constructed; and statues of Oppenheimer and US General Leslie Groves, the US Army's man in charge.
A house once occupied at different times by future Nobel prize winners Edwin McMillan and Hans Bethe is now the Harold Agnew Cold War Gallery, which explores the Cold War history of Los Alamos through artefacts and exhibits. The house in which Oppenheimer lived is next door, but can only be seen from the outside.
Visitors can, however, enter Fuller Lodge, which was used as an auditorium and space for social gatherings (it appears in the film). The nearby Bradbury Science Museum features 60 interactive exhibits that trace the history of the Manhattan Project. There are even full-size replicas of Fat Man and Little Boy, the atomic bombs detonated over Nagasaki and Hiroshima on August 6 and 9, 1945.
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Elsewhere in the town, at the Main Gate Park, you will find a full-scale replica of the original entrance to the site, to which all arrivals had to report for clearance.
More of the park’s historic properties are located “behind the fence” and can only be seen three times a year, on a guided tour with the Los Alamos National Laboratory. These include Battleship Bunker, a building used for implosion diagnostic testing; and the Slotin Building, where physicist Louis Slotin in 1946 slipped while demonstrating the assembly of a bomb. The radiation to which he accidentally exposed himself killed him nine days later.
The Trinity Site, where the history-making Gadget was detonated on July 16 1945, is on the White Sands Missile Range, 337km south of Los Alamos. It is usually only open to the public twice a year, in April and October. However, this year’s April opening has been cancelled. The next opening is October 19. See the Trinity Site Open House.
ANATOMY OF A FALL
Villarembert in the French Alps
The catalyst for this Hitchcockian thriller is the mysterious death of a writer, who falls from the second floor of the home he shares with his wife and son in a small, isolated town in the Alps. While much of the rest is a courtroom drama, the action opens at high altitude, in a chalet dwarfed by snowy mountains — a location as dramatic as the storyline to come.
Filming took place mostly in the spectacular Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in southeastern France in towns such as Montbonnot-Saint-Martin and Grenoble in Isère, and Maurienne and Villarembert in the Savoie department, much of which borders Italy.
Savoie is a popular tourist area, known as the “jewel of the French Alps” thanks to its incredible snow-capped mountain scenery with ski resorts, national parks and charming villages.
Interestingly, the actual chalet where the family drama unfolds is called the Fjällstuga chalet. Until earlier this week, it was available to rent on Airbnb.
It is in the hamlet of Les Crevasses, just outside Villarembert, a town associated with the famed Le Corbier ski resort. This is part of the Sybelles ski area, the fourth largest ski area in France.
In the Airbnb listing, it is described as being “part of an old renovated Mauritian farmhouse with authentic charm”. It sleeps four in two bedrooms, has one bath, no Wi-Fi and the hosts live in a separate dwelling on the same property.
It has a near-perfect rating of 4.95 (out of five) from past guests and the cost to stay is R2,098 per night. [The listing was open earlier this week but, at the time of writing, appears to have been taken down.]
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
Pawhuska, Oklahoma
Killers of the Flower Moon dramatises the true story of a series of murders of members of the indigenous Osage Nation, which took place between 1918 and 1931 after oil was found on their land. Many scenes were filmed in Pawhuska, the town in Oklahoma’s Osage County that is considered the seat of the Osage Nation. Its downtown area was transformed to look like 1920s Fairfax, which is about 45km southwest of Pawhuska and where many of the historical events in the movie happened.
The Osage Nation's population today is over 25,000 strong, with about 4,500 living in Osage County on the Osage Nation Reservation. The reservation covers about 6,000km2, with Pawhuska in the middle of it. Their official website says visitors are welcome but are asked to follow several rules of etiquette, such as not entering “or even approaching our sacred burial grounds and cemeteries”.
Named for Chief Paw-Hiu-Skah, Pawhuska is a great place to explore both Indigenous American and Old West culture. A whopping 86 of its 98 downtown buildings are listed on the US National Register of Historic Places. Its Osage Nation Museum has exhibits showcasing traditional clothing, artefacts, artwork and historical photographs.
Just 30 minutes northwest of town is the Joseph H Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, which at 16,000ha is the largest protected piece of tallgrass prairie left on Earth, home to over 700 plants, 300 birds and 80 mammals, including bison. Visitors can experience the wide-open prairie on a 24km driving loop or hike along designated trails. For more of the outdoors, 25km northeast of Pawhuska is the Osage Hills State Park, which has hiking trails, camping, fishing, and other recreational activities.
Back in town, the Ben Johnson Cowboy Museum tips a hat to the Old West, with displays of saddles, tack, spurs and pictures of well-known Osage County cowboys.
BARBIE
Venice Beach, California
Pretty much all of the fantastically plastic dream that is Barbie Land was built on lots at the Warner Bros studio in Leavesden, London. Though you can visit that site to encounter one of the world's other beloved characters — on the Harry Potter tour — there is no Barbie tour. You can, however, experience some real backdrops from when Barbie and Ken enter the real world by heading to Los Angeles, California — most notably Venice Beach.
About a 25-minute drive from downtown LA, Venice Beach was developed by eccentric millionaire Abbot Kinney in 1905, whose vision was a seaside resort that would echo its Italian namesake with canals, piazzas, pedestrian bridges, a lagoon, and a colonnaded business district.
Today it’s known for its laid-back bohemian vibe where visitors can enjoy a wacky parade of characters — street performers, artists, vendors — along with street art and eclectic shops. Here, you could engage in several Barbie-esque activities, such as joining a game of beach volleyball or, like Ken, you could simply “beach”. You can try to get biceps like Ryan Gosling’s at the outdoor gym known as Muscle Beach, and cheer on the skateboarders and BMX riders at the skate park. And you can definitely rent a set of rollerblades and people-watch as you whizz by — Lycra optional.
Location scouts should also check out the Beyond Baroque arts centre, which doubled as the Venice Police Department in the movie.
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For a bit of a Barbie-themed road trip, take a drive to Palm Springs, 170km east of LA. This iconic California destination is famed for its hot springs, stylish hotels, golf courses and spas and particularly its mid-century modern houses surrounded by miles of desert. The filmmakers have said that they pored over images of Palm Springs from the 1950s for their Barbie Land aesthetic — and drew particularly on the Kaufmann House, a glass, steel and stone architectural masterpiece built by Richard Neutra between 1946 and 1947. It's a private home so you can't go inside but you can admire it from the “sidewalk”.
Back in LA, finish off with a stroll around the Century City area, among whose high-rises, commercial centres and upscale restaurants, Ken discovers “The Patriarchy” in the film.
For a bit of Barbie elsewhere in the world, Les Cours Mont-Royal shopping mall in downtown Montreal has The Barbie Expo. With more than 500 Barbies, including Hollywood stars, unique one-of-a-kind Barbies and glamorous outfits created by famous fashion designers, it is the largest permanent collection of Barbie paraphernalia in the world. You can also visit the expo virtually here.
In London, the Design Museum will this year host a major Barbie exhibition from July 5 until February 2025 to coincide with the doll’s 65th anniversary. It will cover the history of Barbie design through fashion, architecture, furniture and vehicles, among other elements.
PAST LIVES
New York City
Past Lives follows a pair of friends from their childhood on the streets of Seoul, Korea, to their chance reunion 20 years later in New York City. In Seoul, one notable location is the sculpture garden at the MMCA (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art), where the children are shown climbing on some of the artwork.
As for New York, there are several backdrops that will be familiar if you've ever seen anything set in NYC and which you could easily visit. These include the famous Madison Square Park in Manhattan, a 2.5ha green space peppered with public artworks, and the Museum of Modern Art. The latter is worth a lengthy visit for its rich collection, spanning everything from innovative European painting and sculpture of the 1880s to today's film, design and performance art. Highlights include Claude Monet’s Water Lilies, Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night and Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, along with more recent works by Andy Warhol, Elizabeth Murray, Cindy Sherman and many more.
You can also follow in the characters’ wake on a ferry ride around the Statue of Liberty, cruising directly under the Brooklyn Bridge and get an epic view of perhaps the most iconic skyline in the world. But the cherry on top has to be Jane's Carousel in Brooklyn Bridge Park between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.
This carved wooden 48-horse carousel was built in 1922 and was originally installed at a park in Ohio. In terrible condition, the whole thing was bought at auction by park developer David Walentas and his wife Jane in the 1980s. Jane, an artist, spent more than 20 years painstakingly restoring the carousel as a gift to this waterfront neighbourhood. It opened to the public in 2011.
