Written and Directed by Christopher Nolan
Cast: Fionn Whitehead, Damien Bonnard, Aneurin Barnard, James Bloor, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance, Tom Glynn-Carney, Tom Hardy, Jack Lowden, Billy Howle, Mikey Collins, Dean Ridge, Bobby Lockwood, Will Attenborough, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Nolan, James D’Arcy, Matthew Marsh, Cillian Murphy, Adam Long, Harry Styles, Miranda Nolan, Bradley Hall, Jack Cutmore-Scott, Brett Lorenzini, Michael Fox, Brian Vernel, Elliott Tittensor, Kevin Guthrie, Harry Richardson, Jochum ten Haaf, Johnny Gibbon, Richard Sanderson, Kim Hartman, Charley Palmer Rothwell, John Nolan, Bill Milner, Eric Richard, Michael Caine (voice)
Soundtrack: Hans Zimmer
This film has barely been out for a hot minute and there’s already very little I can say about it that hasn’t been said already.
Lord knows there are plenty of World War II movies out there (and they’ll probably keep making them until the end of time, since it seems to be the only armed conflict in history without any moral ambiguity), and there are plenty of EPIC war movies, so do we really need another epic World War II movie?
Well, yes.
Maybe someone somewhere out there has seen a movie like Dunkirk before, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t (and I’ve seen a myriad of World War II movies). Certainly no one has shot a movie like this on IMAX before, but I can’t recall another film that features warfare on the land, sea, and air while still keeping most of (if not all of) the visual spectacle in camera; not to this degree anyway.
Is Dunkirk perfect? I say no, but I don’t think it’s intended to be either.
The film is laid out in a non-linear fashion, featuring three different stories in three different time frames, eventually intersecting:
1. The Mole – One Week: This is the story of soldiers on the beach at Dunkirk, awaiting their fate, played out over a week’s time.
2. The Sea – One Day: This is [mostly?] the tale of a civilian boat crossing the Channel to rescue troops, played out over the course of a day.
3. The Air – One Hour: This is the story of a flight of Spitfires who do battle over the channel, played out over the course of an hour.
The various and overlapping timelines result in the audience seeing certain events from multiple perspectives at different times throughout the film I don’t think it’s all edited together in the most elegant fashion, but I’m not sure it’s meant to be. Perhaps Christopher Nolan was intending to portray war as more disjointed and chaotic than we often see, especially in classic Hollywood films.
I know for sure he wanted to go against the Hollywood grain in terms of casting, using actual young people, as opposed to late-20s/early-30s standing in for teenagers (not dissimilar to how Jon Watts approached Spider-Man: Homecoming). I’m not sure exactly how much this translates to the screen, I think the movie could have worked just fine with older actors, but, in comparison to other films, say, Starship Troopers, where 28-year-old Casper Van Dien is dancing at the senior prom (or whatever), this choice definitely stands out.
Honestly though, like every Christopher Nolan movie from 2008 onward, this movie is really about the visuals, and in that regard it excels wildly. The large film format allows for images of stunning breadth and clarity (the air-to-air sections in particular are truly spectacular), but I was surprised at how many intimate moments (e.g. close-ups) there were as well.
Frankly, this movie was a bit more arthouse than I was expecting, and I think a lot of people have been surprised by that as well. There’s certainly a lot less dialogue than we’ve been accustomed to in this type of film, which some have complained about, but it doesn’t bother me.
There’s one last large component I haven’t touched on yet, and that’s Hans Zimmer’s score. I’m a bit conflicted about it. I think oftentimes it’s a bit too modern (which, in comparison, makes Michael Giachinno’s score for Apes 3 all the more impressive), but I can’t deny that it’s effective. It’s really the uniting factor of all of the disparate elements of the film.
At the end of the day, the tagline of Dunkirk (“Survival is Victory”) is exactly what the message is, which is to say that sometimes just staying alive is enough. It’s truly a tale of the human spirit, for better or worse. It may not seem as “vital” as other contemporary combat pictures, but just because the story is old doesn’t mean it can’t speak to you today.
Quite simply, Dunkirk is a triumph of cinema, and should be seen by all.
Rating: ★★★★½ (out of five)
P.S.
I saw this on a 70mm IMAX print, which I do recommend if you can find one, especially since these don’t come around every day, but it’s fine if you see it on a slightly smaller format first, because the IMAX experience is truly overwhelming (especially for your ears).