Dunkirk has been a passion project of Christopher Nolan’s for years. He wanted to give the film the production value and scale of a Hollywood blockbuster. However, he wanted to actually direct a few blockbusters before he gave it a shot. Well, since then he’s made The Dark Knight, Inception, and Interstellar. I think it’s safe to say that Nolan has carved a name for himself among the Hollywood greats. With so much experience he finally returns to his pet project. Boy, does he finally give his project the treatment it deserves! His tale about the evacuation of British soldiers from Europe defies cinematic conventions. That’s both an asset and a liability, but the end result is still raw and poetic.
Dunkirk begins, fittingly enough, in Dunkirk itself. A group of British troops walk through the village streets as leaflets fall from the sky, letting them know that the Germans surround them. Moments later, gunshots shatter the quiet, and right away the movie begins. The film actually follows three different stories, and in typical Nolan fashion the story-telling is not linear. We follow a soldier and his friend stuck in Dunkirk, trying to get home over the course of a week. We also follow a father, his son, and his son’s friend over a single day. They take their fishing vessel from their home in Britain all the way to Dunkirk to help evacuate troops. Finally we follow a pilot over the course of a single hour as he pursues the German air force, keeping the skies clear and the evacuation running.
One thing to be said about Dunkirk, without a doubt, is that it’s full of ambition. The way the story runs can be off-setting at first, and it did take me a while to realize how the structure was going. However, once it all connected I was able to dig in and see where events were being foreshadowed, and how they were all going to tie together. To be sure, it’s not told the way most stories are, and it could be a turn-off. It still works well though, and the execution works wonders.
Something else remarkable I noticed about a quarter of the way through was the lack of dialogue. The actors and Nolan’s direction combine to tell a story with as few words and as many visuals as possible. That means we see less talking, fewer monologues, and more action and story. There is no down time in this movie until the credits roll.
The lack of dialogue does come with a trade-off, since we don’t learn many characters’ names. In fact, I can only remember George and Peter, the two sons with their father on their fishing boat. As a result I end up calling them “the dad” or “the pilot” or “the main character soldier”. While it does sacrifice characterization to a degree, I still found myself invested. The characters develop just enough to make them intriguing. Plus, the historical context helps a lot to establish motivation. I mean, it’s World War Two, they’re Britons fighting Nazis… you know who the good and bad guys are!
I also have to give a hand for everyone involved with the audio, both in the soundtrack and the editing room. Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe come together to create music that accents the visuals. They created a sense of constant unease and suspense where needed, they let us go at ease when the time was right. The sound department also uses bombastic effects to simulate the sensation of explosions. I ducked my head when bullets flew by. My seat actually shook with every blast. Incredible!
The acting, as I mentioned before, hits on every single beat, thus helping to tell the story with few spoken words. There are few big name stars here, except Cillian Murphy who has been in most of Christopher Nolan’s movies. One name that surprised me on the cast billing, though, was none other than Harry Styles. Yes, Harry Styles from the boy band One Direction! This is his acting debut, and well… he has a long acting career ahead of him if he keeps this up! He has a real talent for drama, and I want to see him in more.
The important thing to take away is that Dunkirk isn’t your typical blockbuster or war movie. It doesn’t have a “Protagonist X needs to reach Goal Y” structure. It’s like a snapshot of what happened, told through three stories that end in different ways. No one comes charging in guns blazing to save the day. There is no hard-boiled commando waiting to take down the Nazis. Yet, when I watched the British civilians sailing up to the French beaches, with U-boats crawling underwater and dive-bombers wailing above their heads, I felt like I was seeing a different kind of heroism.
One of my favorite lines in the whole film comes near the end, and it sums up the idea of Dunkirk well. The soldiers who survived have landed back on English soil. A blind man is there handing out blankets, congratulating them all with “Well done, lads.” One young man responds, “All we did was survive,” to which the blind man counters, “That’s enough.” It’s not a movie about victory. Heck, it’s acknowledged the whole thing was a military disaster. Instead, Dunkirk is a movie about surviving and the grand effort that made it all possible.
Now, the movie may not be for everyone. You won’t get something like Saving Private Ryan, where there are characters you can latch onto. Yet, Dunkirk is still on par with Saving Private Ryan in sheer filmmaking skill. It’s an emotional journey, and it will give you an experience unlike anything many of us have seen before.
Sunga
Park is a Korean artist, graphic designer and freelance illustrator who
is based in Bangkok.
Many of her illustrations have been included in magazines. She is
currently visiting Europe painting watercolours and sketching the
architecture. She is a self-taught artist who enjoys the ‘unpredictable’ nature of
watercolours to show natural aspects of the environment. She states in a
recent interview “Watercolours taught me about life, because I created
tons of failures over repeated attempts.” Much of her work is inspired by the architecture of the places she has
travelled, from India to Europe, every place she visits seeps into her
work and allows her to develop her style. She states in a recent
interview with Japan Cinema, “I always focus on showing my feelings
through the common architectural features. When people look at an
oriental painting their ideas can float along with the objects in the
piece. I intend to attract the participation of viewers in this way. For
me, art is completed by people’s imagination or appreciation.”
