Dunkirk
They say history is written by the victors. By all accounts Dunkirk should have been a defeat. It's history, so I can rest assured that I won't be accused of spoiling anything here. So if you haven't heard, during World War II the Brits and the French got pinned down by the Germans at Dunkirk, trapped between the advancing army, which would eventually temporarily divide France in two, and the English Channel. Dunkirk is pretty close to England, but it's not the closest point, that would be Calais. Anyway, according to the film, 400,000 men were trapped on that beach, sitting ducks for the Luftwaffe. The harbor was too shallow to allow the destroyers that could carry many more men to get anywhere near enough to pick them up, so they had to rely on somewhat smaller boats that could sidle up next to a long pier to load the men and carry them out to the destroyers waiting in the channel. The Germans fired on those ships, killing the men and attempting to blockade the harbor so no other troops could evacuate. A call went out to civilian boat owners. Everything from fishing trawlers to pleasure boats answered the call, and (again according to the film) they rescued 300,000 of those men. Those are more or less the facts (I haven't verified these numbers, but why would Christopher Nolan lie to me?).
Now to the particulars of this film. Nolan is an interesting director. Memento is one of my favorite films of all time, and I enjoyed the mind-bending qualities of it and Inception. Up to now though, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to putting him on my favorite director list. But the trailers for this, and his pedigree, put Dunkirk on my absolute must see list this year.
I am simply blown away. The dialogue is so sparse in this film. Great swathes of the film are completely silent. It's a rare treat, honestly. Sometimes films can get overly talky. I've also become a little sensitive to film scores. I feel like the talkiness and the over reliance on film scores go hand in hand. It's like directors are afraid to allow a moment of silence in a film, as if the audience will get bored if there's nothing to hear. In this, the score is ever-present, but the effect is so different. I never felt it was overwhelming the scene, but enhancing it. It created a beautiful tension that kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. The cinematography is beautiful, but then I expected that from the trailers (I'm putting this on my Oscar list for best cinematography right now). But one thing you don't see in the trailer is the aerial photography. I thought the dogfights were breathtaking.
I read only one review of Dunkirk because I didn't want to be influenced by anyone beforehand. That one talked about it being confusing. Ummm, you do recall this guy directed Memento, Inception, and Interstellar, right? If you're confused by this film you honestly have no business watching any of those films because you definitely will not understand them. There is a bit of a Rashomon quality to the film, in that some events are told from different viewpoints, and that's not explained, but I picked up on it pretty quick. I didn't think it was that difficult a concept to grasp, but maybe it was. In the end, such a film managed to bring tears to my eyes. All the right elements came together - the perfect casting (omg Kenneth Branagh...I absolutely love you), the perfect director, the perfect score (Hans Zimmer is a master). It's emotional. It's magical. It's brilliant.
Dunkirk should have been a defeat. Having to retreat back across the channel is not a good start to a campaign. But by changing the perspective, victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat. A nation came together and answered the call to rescue their soldiers. That's the way heroes are made. They don't let a defeat define them; they make it drive them. And like the Alamo, Dunkirk served to drive the Brits onward to victory (sorry, I have to fit s Texas reference in every now and then or they revoke my card).
Honestly, don't let this film pass you by. See it on the screen. You don't have to do IMAX, but see it where you can appreciate the full scale of what is happening on those beaches, so when Churchill's words are read at the end, you understand fully the impact this battle had on the British psyche.
Now to the particulars of this film. Nolan is an interesting director. Memento is one of my favorite films of all time, and I enjoyed the mind-bending qualities of it and Inception. Up to now though, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to putting him on my favorite director list. But the trailers for this, and his pedigree, put Dunkirk on my absolute must see list this year.
I am simply blown away. The dialogue is so sparse in this film. Great swathes of the film are completely silent. It's a rare treat, honestly. Sometimes films can get overly talky. I've also become a little sensitive to film scores. I feel like the talkiness and the over reliance on film scores go hand in hand. It's like directors are afraid to allow a moment of silence in a film, as if the audience will get bored if there's nothing to hear. In this, the score is ever-present, but the effect is so different. I never felt it was overwhelming the scene, but enhancing it. It created a beautiful tension that kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. The cinematography is beautiful, but then I expected that from the trailers (I'm putting this on my Oscar list for best cinematography right now). But one thing you don't see in the trailer is the aerial photography. I thought the dogfights were breathtaking.
I read only one review of Dunkirk because I didn't want to be influenced by anyone beforehand. That one talked about it being confusing. Ummm, you do recall this guy directed Memento, Inception, and Interstellar, right? If you're confused by this film you honestly have no business watching any of those films because you definitely will not understand them. There is a bit of a Rashomon quality to the film, in that some events are told from different viewpoints, and that's not explained, but I picked up on it pretty quick. I didn't think it was that difficult a concept to grasp, but maybe it was. In the end, such a film managed to bring tears to my eyes. All the right elements came together - the perfect casting (omg Kenneth Branagh...I absolutely love you), the perfect director, the perfect score (Hans Zimmer is a master). It's emotional. It's magical. It's brilliant.
Dunkirk should have been a defeat. Having to retreat back across the channel is not a good start to a campaign. But by changing the perspective, victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat. A nation came together and answered the call to rescue their soldiers. That's the way heroes are made. They don't let a defeat define them; they make it drive them. And like the Alamo, Dunkirk served to drive the Brits onward to victory (sorry, I have to fit s Texas reference in every now and then or they revoke my card).
Honestly, don't let this film pass you by. See it on the screen. You don't have to do IMAX, but see it where you can appreciate the full scale of what is happening on those beaches, so when Churchill's words are read at the end, you understand fully the impact this battle had on the British psyche.
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