Dunkirk

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Release: Friday, July 21, 2017

→IMAX

Written by: Christopher Nolan

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

In memory of my late grandfather, John Little.

In his first historical drama, one that gives the acclaimed writer-director an opportunity to fly that British flag high, Christopher Nolan is deeply committed to creating a singular, sensory experience that goes beyond a mere reenactment. Relying on an intimate relationship between its technical elements as well as time as a constant factor, the acutely distressing thrills of the mighty Dunkirk you will feel in your marrow.

As always, Nolan doesn’t just go for style points. Firmly entrenched within the chaos and destruction of this senses-shattering summer blockbuster lies “the Miracle of Dunkirk,” a story of survival and stoicism nearly lost to the sea of newspaper headlines declaring an embarrassing defeat for the good guys. In fairness, much was lost. This was desperation. Even the British Bulldog acknowledged, sprinkling a pinch of salt upon his heaps of praise for his boys: “Wars are not won by evacuations.”

June 1940. The Nazi campaign was steamrolling Europe and had pinned a significant number of Allied forces against the grimy waters of the northern French harbor of Dunkirk. An increasingly desperate Luftwaffe, to whom the task of preventing any sort of escape had ultimately fallen (after a significant delay), had been engaging the opposition on the water as well as in the air. Devastation was catastrophic on both sides, though the Germans suffered greater aerial losses — some 240 aircraft over a nine-day span. In that time 200 marine vessels were sacrificed, including a hospital and the famed Medway Queen, a beautiful British paddle steamer. Out of a total Allied strength approximate 400,000, some 30,000 were either killed in action or presumed dead or captured in this violent and pivotal clash.

Because the Brit has built a career around an intellectual yet highly entertaining brand of filmmaking, the bluntly observational Dunkirk feels somewhat like a departure, if for no other reason than it feels gauche to call this entertainment. The material demands a certain intonation, and as a result Nolan has created his most harrowing, his most sobering movie to date. Even more to his credit, his approach consistently shies away from excessive bloodshed, making this, in some ways, the anti-Saving Private Ryan. The anti-Hacksaw Ridge. The anti-any war film that subscribes to the notion that gore and blood are necessary evils if a viewer is to be properly immersed in the action.

In realizing a significantly world-shaping event, Nolan finds himself as a director adapting to the circumstances. Instead of philosophizing and extrapolating, he takes a more back-door approach to accumulating profound emotion. Empathy for the masses doesn’t require an intimate relationship with any one character. The point is to highlight the commonality found within the calamity. To that end, two things tend to strike you about the film: its narrative style, which follows key role players on each of the three fronts, and the sound design, chiefly realized through Oscar-winning composer and six-time collaborator Hans Zimmer (who clearly took the memo to heart when Nolan told him to make a show of force).

The scenery has changed, yet the element of time remains Nolan’s favorite ball of yarn. Once again he demands it be a malleable object, able to be manipulated in order to heighten the sense of all-encompassing, inescapable danger that crashed upon the stranded repeatedly like waves against the beach. His nonlinear triptych spreads the workload of presenting each unique aspect of the Good Fight across an incredibly efficient 107 minutes, resulting in frequently intense and dynamically intersecting perspectives that show all parts working together. It’s the epitome of cinematic, as opposed to the simple trick-fuckery some critics have dismissed the technique as.

Presented first is “The Mole,” so named after the long breakwater pier upon which thousands stood awaiting rescue, and it describes everything that happens on land. This is where we meet a trio of young soldiers, privates Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) and Alex (Harry Styles) and a low-ranking soldier named Gibson (Aneurin Barnard). We follow them through an obstacle course from hell. Nolan brings aboard a few recognizable faces to give weight to the proceedings, like dry-as-a-box-of-saltines Kenneth Branagh, who doesn’t do much as a British commander, but then the role requires that his hands be tied. James D’Arcy is alongside him as an army colonel.

“The Sea” is the second thread introduced and it develops over the course of a single day. It’s characterized by a death-defying crossing of the English Channel. Mark Rylance gets the distinction of representing this stalwart civilian effort, playing a regular old Joe who felt a great sense of duty to answer Churchill’s call. He’s joined by son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) and a young local boy (Barry Keoghan). The purity in this gesture, in their desire to help, is what the movie is all about. Because sometimes actions really do speak louder than words, Nolan keeps dialogue to a minimum in Dunkirk, allowing the actions taken both by the individual and of the collective to drown out even the bombast of Zimmer’s incredible score.

Last but certainly not least is “The Air,” which features all the acrobatics aloft. This segment takes place over the course of just one hour. In it we experience the way Nolan has interpreted the ‘dogfighting’ phenomenon associated with World War II. Needless to say, it’s breathtaking and deeply involving. Bullets ricochet cacophonously. The tin sound is abrasive. Radio comm between the RAF and Farrier screams ’40s simplicity. Some of the most stunning and graceful sequences of combat you will ever see in a war film result from Nolan’s decision to place IMAX cameras on the bodies of actual Spitfires, and returning DP Hoyte Van Hoytema’s ability to create unique, disorienting angles. Don’t blame Nolan for any confusion. If anything, lay it all on Hoytema, who turns cameras sideways as we sink into the water to give the impression ‘the walls are closing in.’

As time ticked away and spirits and ammunition ran out, the thousands — mostly British and French, but among them a smattering of Belgians and Canadians — stared longingly across the Channel, wondering if they’d ever make it back to the familiar shores of their hometowns. Others looked skyward, hoping for a miracle in the form of the Royal Air Force, only to be disheartened by the sight of a Messerschmitt dive-bombing right for them. And the lucky left wondering if they’d ever see (and hear) the end of this unrelenting period of undulating, unbearable stress.

Nolan’s latest test piece is about so much more than an historic military debacle. The pearl that lies inside, the drama that lies underneath the drama as it were, is that Churchill got ten times the number of men that he had hoped would bolster the effort in the inevitable Battle of Britain. The moral victory that resulted from Operation Dynamo’s success, the widespread cooperation, epitomizes why Nolan makes movies. As do the incredibly high stakes. The cumulative effect gives modern audiences a better idea of how close we had actually come to living in a world in which the Nazis had conquered more than Europe.

Recommendation: Relentlessly intense and loud, Dunkirk poses unique problems. As an event film that embraces a wide audience, I saw a number of people exiting the theater with their hands over their ears. Perhaps its ambitions as a senses-throttling experience do have drawbacks. But there is no denying the approach makes this a unique war film, and the epitome of a Christopher Nolan production. It doesn’t get much more profound than this. 

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 107 mins.

Quoted: “I’m on him.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com 

21 thoughts on “Dunkirk”

  1. Pingback: Month in Review: August ’17 | Thomas J

  2. A quite excellent review for a remarkable work of cinema. Watched this in 70mm IMAX and was left shaken and speechless afterwards. Haven’t felt that way after exiting the cinema for a long, long time. I lost my great uncle at Dunkirk and I can only imagine what it was like over there but this gets somewhere close I’m sure.

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    • Man, having that kind of personal connection to the material must have made Nolan’s vision that much more intense. i loved this movie. I personally had no problem with the relative distance he put between us and the men being portrayed. Nolan understood the bottom line was getting a global audience to get a taste of the sensory experience of being in this kind of chaos. Mission frikkin’ accomplished!

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  3. Great write up mate, with you all the way on this one. Especially the way he bends time, and the way it is like an anti hacksaw Ridge as you put it, which I appreciated as I couldn’t stand that movie. And good God, the tension!! I didn’t see anyone leave, but then again I was right at the front taking it all in.

    I don’t however think that this embraces a wider audience though, unlike his recent stuff, which I haven’t liked all that much. I may have misinterpreted what you wrote though. But I really admire Nolan for not going that route, not pandering to everyone. There’s almost no blood, no idiotic romance story a la Hacksaw (ugh), hell were there even any female characters at all?? Good on him for sticking to his guns I reckon.

    This and Memento are my fave Nolan films, by a long way.

    BTW, its good to be reading your writing again mate. I am finally on the mend and can use my PC instead of a bloody tablet!

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    • Nolan is making a personal event (he is British after all) available for consumption by a global audience. Few people on these shores here really are aware of how critical this mission was, or that the disaster was of such scale. US involvement wasn’t officially recognized til after the Japanese destroyed Pearl Harbor. We had no emotional investment at this point, so in that regard Dunkirk opens itself up to a bigger audience beyond the British. I guess that’s what I meant. Sorry if that was confusing! 🙂

      Good to hear from you too man, it’s been awhile!

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  4. Great review Tom. The movie is fantastic. Excellent work as usual by Nolan. What got to me the most that this is based on real life events – what those men had to go through is something I can’t even fathom.

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    • The situation is so intensely dramatic. I love how Nolan gives audiences a real taste of the chaos. Dunkirk is so in-your-face you kind of have to take a deep breath after all is said and done!

      One thing I will say though is that I was surprised how much tension was lost on a second viewing. I was not nearly as taken by it the second time around but that’s not to say this rollercoaster ride doesn’t still offer thrills. But it’s like being on a theme park ride: the first time you’re really not sure if you want to do it, the second time you’re like, that wasn’t so bad.

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  5. Loved the dogfight scenes with Tom and the boat story with Mark Rylance. I thought the weak link was Harry Styles and his mates scurrying about trying to stay alive. I don’t know, I was emotionally detached. I thought Kenneth Branaugh’s role was a waste of time. The cinematography was outstanding.

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    • The Kenneth Branagh thing is a posturing thing. This film employs a wide range of British thespianship — the young actors who aren’t really that established, Mark Rylance as a prominent stage actor, Tom Hardy of rising international prominence, and then of course The Establishment itself, Branagh. So I agree his performance isn’t much but it makes sense why they would go for an actor like him.

      The individual threads in Dunkirk I felt all had their unique appeal. But yes — I think maybe the Rylance/Murphy narrative (and I didn’t even address Cillian Murphy in this, whoops!) was the most rewarding. There was so much stress in this movie, I need to probably go visit my doctor.

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      • Ha. I admire the heck out of Branagh and its not that he did a poor job, he just didn’t have much of a thread to swing from. He stood there stoically. Cillian Murphy’s character was intriguing, probably the most interesting character of the whole film. I wondered throughout about this unreliable character–for someone causing the death of a saintly young man, I had lots of empathy for him and his condition. I kept waiting for some kind of resolution, a scene of recognition that he was responsible for the boy’s death. It was an intimate thread, the thickest thread to leave that storyline unresolved. Perhaps I’m too harsh.

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        • No i don’t think you are being too harsh, that’s a really good point. I can’t believe I didn’t bring up Murphy’s role, jeez. He was very interesting indeed. Heartbreaking having survived that U boat attack. I don’t know if he necessarily needed like, redemption, I guess you could call it. The fact that Peter ended up sympathetically withholding information to spare him more grief I think wrapped it up fairly but I can see it leaving question marks for others.

          And yes, that’s what Branagh def does. He’s a good physical embodiment of stoicism. But it’s definitely not what I would call a meaty role. Same for Darcy. Those were interesting decisions. Ditto Hardy in the Spitfire.

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    • It was extraordinary!!! I mean, how can you expect anything less at this point? This was worth the wait after the first night I tried to see it and the power went out. That was so frustrating at first but then when I finally got my hands on it I was like a little kid.

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  7. So unique. I saw it twice and this really got me on the 2nd viewing. Film is a visual medium and that’s particularly true with this production. Dunkirk will play much better in a theater than on TV but I loved the experience!

    P.S. Great call out as to how Nolan’s “approach consistently shies away from excessive bloodshed…” A daring choice for a war film.

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    • Yeah I really loved how this became an intensely visceral experience through other means. Those films I mentioned are of course amazing works, but Dunkirk imposes its will so ferociously it’s kind of stunning. And I liked the way you put it, that feeling almost manifests in the physical.

      Nolan’s most dramatic work so far, in my book.

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