Dunkirk Review

I'm not going to hide my bias, I am a Christopher Nolan fan. The only film of his I actively dislike is Following, his very first film. I think Interstellar is the best sci-fi film of this decade. He's one of the few directors of this generation that people can safely call a "visionary" because he's allowed to make the films he wants with very few restrictions. And he's earned that right because he really is a damned good director. I won't suck his dick like IMDb does (I mean, come on, this movie had an average of over 9.0 a week before it even came out), but he still is one of my favorites working today.

Naturally, I had to catch his take on World War II, because it seems like every notable director has to do at least one war film in their lifetime just to see if they can. Nolan's film specifically focuses on an event that surprisingly hasn't had more movies made about it: the daring rescue attempt of over 400,000 troops from Dunkirk, France. Considering we have 13 billion movies about Normandy or Iwo Jima, it seems odd that a major turning point in the war, from a moralistic standpoint, has been largely ignored in the media (Spoiler: It's because America wasn't involved). So it seems appropriate that Nolan, a British man, decided to use his seemingly infinite clout in Hollywood to get this film made. In IMAX, of course.

Right from the film's first frame, the audience is immediately thrust into the situation, and it becomes apparent this will be a different kind of Nolan film. One of Nolan's worst habits is he tends to rely on exposition, which in and of itself isn't bad, but the way his characters deliver the expository dialogue can feel rather robotic. However, Dunkirk throws that out the window for the most part, relying much more heavily on action and imagery than usual. I didn't time it, but I believe there are only three lines of dialogue in the first five minutes of this movie, and two of them are in unsubtitled French. It didn't surprise me hearing that Nolan originally planned for this film to have no script, and that the final script that was written totaled just 76 pages.

EXCLUSIVE: A leaked sample of Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk script.

But right from the very beginning, the film becomes an intense experience. Not even two minutes pass into the movie before shots are fired and soldiers start to die. This feeling of unease that permeates the film is heightened by the gloomy colors, the nonchalant attitude to death surrounding the survivors, and the sound design, a mix of the shrieking sounds of German fighters zooming overhead and bombing the beaches and Hans Zimmer incorporating the ever present sound of a ticking stopwatch into his musical score.

And that brings us back to Nolan's favorite motif: time. Ever since Following, Nolan has played with the concept of time as both a narrative device and/or as a plot point in his movies. Dunkirk is no exception, as Nolan bends time to his will throughout the film's three stories. Without giving away too much, each story line in the film spans a different amount of time. It's pretty easy to see why he chose to film the movie this way: telling it chronologically would have been boring. By compressing time and darting around, the film becomes much more engaging and intense. If the fighters showed up late in the movie, it would be harder for the audience to care about them because we would have not had the time to grow invested in their plight throughout the film, and instead we would be forced to grow accustomed to brand new characters two-thirds into the movie when we just want to go back to what's happening to everyone else. By introducing all the important characters early into the film, we can grow attached to everyone at the same time and become more involved with all of their stories of survival during the entire runtime.

The film does a great job cutting back and forth between all three stories too, knowing when to switch points of view when things start to slow down, or when Nolan wants to build tension up to a breaking point (which you know he just loves to do). Eventually, all three storylines do coalesce, although they never quite fall into perfect sync. This film is a masterclass in editing techniques, and I'd be shocked if it isn't at the very least nominated for Best Editing at this year's Academy Awards.

Dunkirk reunites Nolan with his Interstellar cinematographer, Hoyte Van Hoytema. Much like their previous film together, Dunkirk relies far less on shaky cam than Nolan's earlier films (especially his Batman trilogy) and is instead packed with long takes, or other ways to disorient the audience (like making things extremely dark or strapping a camera onto a sinking ship). The cinematography here shows us just how messed up this war really was, and just how disorienting it must have been for all the men and women who served.

I didn't see the film in IMAX, so I've only heard rumors that these were handed out at IMAX screenings.

That brings us to our next point: is this film pro or anti-war? It's weird for me to say this, but I think it's both. The film has no qualms in making the Nazis out to be total bad guys; they're faceless throughout the entire film, and we see them heartlessly kill hundreds of injured men who simply want to escape back home. The movie also ends with Winston Churchill's address on the Dunkirk evacuation, and highlights that it was a huge morale boost for the British citizens which eventually would help them win the war.

But there's the conundrum. We see firsthand in the film how many sacrifices are made to make any sort of evacuation possible. In each of the three stories, there are tremendous sacrifices made by everyone so that they can do what needs to be done. These sacrifices will no doubt haunt these men for the rest of their lives because some actions they take are not very humane. There's no doubt that Nolan wanted to highlight the cost of war, and just how harrowing of an experience it is for both the soldiers on the ground and in the air and the citizens back home. So, while this war was unavoidable because of the enemy being fought, the film by no means glorifies the war itself. It instead glorifies the people willing to put everything on the line to make it home, or to help those who want to make it home.

I was going to make a joke here about Tom Hardy sounding like Bane when he puts his mask on before seeing the movie, but...that's actually what he kinda sounds like.

These stories would land flat if we didn't have good performances to hook the audiences. Although only a few characters are given any backstory or personality since Nolan's goal was to highlight the plight of the many and the actions they took, the actors overall deliver strong performances. Fionn Whitehead has a breakthrough performance as Tommy, the soldier we follow on the ground during the whole film. It's clear he has only one thing in mind: going home. It's an identifiable performance because Whitehead, not being a movie star yet, can simply be an every-man who is forced to use all of his wits in order to survive. Without those wits (and a lot of luck), he'd be a dead man. We learn to sympathize with him extremely early on when we learn what his first goal is, and it's that sympathy that makes this film one of Nolan's most humanistic.

However, the men who are given the most to do from a dramatic standpoint are Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance, and Cillian Murphy. Branagh delivers an air of confidence as a Navy colonel holding onto that last shred of hope that all his men can make it out alive, but shows no hesitation in sacrificing when it needs to be done. Rylance is the conflicted citizen sailor who puts matters into his own hands to rescue as many soldiers as he can, and the dilemma eats away at him through the film as he makes some questionable choices. Finally, Nolan favorite Murphy returns as the PTSD-inflicted sailor who is stuck on the one ship heading back to Dunkirk, and his relatable desperation not to return leads him to drastic measures.

In case if you're wondering, Sir Michael Caine does return for his seventh straight collaboration with Nolan. However, this time around, try not to look for him but listen for him instead.

Pictured: Christopher Nolan's good-luck charm.

If there's one major complaint I have with Dunkirk, it's sadly Zimmer's musical score. Zimmer caught a lot of flack for his Interstellar score, but I loved that he mixed things up by incorporating organs heavily (and "No Time for Caution" is absolutely brilliant). Here, he relies on humming strings as usual, and thus makes this one of his most forgettable soundtracks. The only thing about it that sticks out is the aforementioned stopwatch, everything else is just background noise. It makes me wonder if this is one film that would have been better without a musical score, and that the wartime noises along with the ticking stopwatch could be Nolan's "orchestra". They basically are already.

By focusing less on individual characters' personalities and more on the actions they take and the choices they make, Dunkirk is definitely a Christopher Nolan war film through and through. Here, we see that World War II still has many worthy stories that have yet to be told. It shows us once again that war brings out the worst in humanity, while also bringing out the best. It doesn't glorify the act of war, it glorifies the heroes who want to save lives even if it means they lose something in return. It is a patriotic film and a humanistic film. It is a director using everything he has learned and putting his motifs and experience to use in creating a war film that feels fresh, and proof that his talents are not limited to sci-fi or superhero movies. It is not my favorite Nolan film, but it wouldn't surprise me if Dunkirk will be called his masterpiece. So far.