Dunkirk is Christopher Nolan's tenth film, an ambitious retelling of the Dunkirk evacuation in the early stages of WWII starring Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy, Harry Styles (yes that Harry Styles), and Fionn Whitehead in his very first film role. A visually stunning and action packed film, Dunkirk also makes sure to extend Nolan's unprecedented run of greatness since Memento all the way back in 2000. Nolan remains one of the most dynamic and consistent directors in the business, with his art house-quality blockbusters still being must sees after all this time. Dunkirk is simultaneously both a complete departure for Nolan, but also a work with his fingerprints all over it. A war film for one, a straightforward narrative, and not even remotely sci-fi/mind-bending in terms of its plot, but its never that straightforward with Nolan. Dunkirk is told in three different timelines, from the land, or "The Mole", spanning one week, "The Sea" spanning one day, and "The Air" spanning one hour. These narratives intertwine throughout the film and jump around and intersect and essentially make a pretty simple story pretty complicated. But this does not hinder Dunkirk at all, but actually improves the overall experience. Nolan also brings his Cinematographer from Interstellar, Hoyte Van Hoytema, to create one of his most visually immersive and impressive movies.
Impressive really is the best word to describe Dunkirk. The lengths that Nolan will go in order to avoid using CGI and maintain as much realism as possible are something to revere. Nolan used actual repainted spitfire fighter planes to capture the aerial dog-fights prevalent in "The Air" storyline, shot portions of the film on sight at Dunkirk, built intricate sets, and rather than digitally impose thousands of extras, chose to build cut outs of soldiers to prop up in the background. Nolan's commitment to practical effects has always been a trademark of his, but perhaps has never been so critical to the film's quality than in Dunkirk. And I don't even know how the dog fights were shot, or how he managed to even piece this film together so well. Nolan has employed spinning hallways for Inception, used an air piston to actually flip an eighteen wheel semi truck in The Dark Knight, and has really never lost his integrity as a filmmaker before, but Dunkirk may be the film that benefits most from Nolan's technical prowess and preference for practical effects, as it truly is a spectacle in a way that his other films may not have been.
" ...a beautiful movie from beginning to end, with every shot framed perfectly, the searing ocean blues and soft gray color pallet, and Hans Zimmer's frenetic score setting the suspenseful tone. Dunkirk is a perfectly made film from a technical standpoint and is simply put, a visual marvel."
Dunkirk lacks the mind-bending, thought provoking qualities that have come to define his past films. Granted, the non-linear structure does require the viewer to piece together the plot, but the plot is really where the complexity of this film ends. Dunkirk is an inspirational story, but really an event more than anything else. A visual spectacle that shows off the talents of a master filmmaker at the peak of his powers, employing every trick in his arsenal to truly immerse the viewer in a frantic, chaotic, horrifying, yet somehow stunning environment. Dunkirk shows ships getting blown up by torpedoes, young and innocent men drowning, air planes crashing into the water, so basically lots of death. Yet it is a beautiful movie from beginning to end, with every shot framed perfectly, the searing ocean blues and soft gray color pallet ,and Hans Zimmer's frenetic score. Dunkirk is a perfectly made film from a technical standpoint and is simply put, a visual marvel.
Dunkirk is short by Nolan standards, with a 106 minute runtime, and is also his shortest script at around seventy-ish pages. The former suggests that Dunkirk is a swift rush of adrenaline that doesn't outstay its welcome, which is true. However the latter is seems to be partially responsible for Dunkirk's thinly drawn characters. It's tough to say whether it works or not in this regard. Nolan clearly has a vision for this film where the characters are not so much characters but rather just people. They are expendable soldiers thrust into a horrifying situation, and we the audience are able to live vicariously through them and experience the film through someone we can easily relate to, precisely because they are so thinly drawn. The audience can easily immerse themselves into the characters because there are... blank, in a sense, with no qualities for us to like or dislike. They're surrogates to an extent, vessels that Nolan has created so the audience can step in and experience the environment he's created. With a film this thrilling and grounded in the "event" more than "the story", it works. And that's not to say Dunkirk doesn't have a story, Fionn Whitehead's Tommy has quite an exciting arc, while Mark Rylance and his sons have a heroic and tragic storyline that's quite poignant. But even still, Dunkirk could have benefited from a bit more personality out of it's characters. A bit more color, more backstory, maybe even slightly more complex motivations than to simply survive. Granted, survival should be priority one, two, and three in the situation the characters find themselves in, but a little complexity or variation amongst the crowd would've been nice. Dunkirk smartly strayed away from having a cliche exposition dump that nearly every war movie seems to have, soldiers huddled around a campfire, talking about their fine lass they have "back home". But even a little bit of humanity added to the characters of Hardy's Farrier, Harry Stlyes' James, or Whitehead's Tommy would have added a lot to the film. I had to look up all of their names on IMDB by the way, not that it would've mattered what they were anyways.
Despite some slightly thinly drawn characters, Dunkirk still succeeds at what its trying to be, and succeeds in a big way. It's a large scale, suspenseful, gorgeously shot, yet contained war epic that will keep your gaze firmly fixed on it for the entire film.