Review: Dunkirk

Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan's new picture, is crafted as meticulously as a clock. Every individual piece is working in concert with the other, one thing out of place would throw everything out of order. Dunkirk is one of the most ambitious and original take on the war film.

In the opening moments, we follow a boy (Fionn Whitehead) and some other soldiers on the empty streets of Dunkirk, France. The large IMAX format allows for the details of the scene to immerse you. We are instantly transported to 1940. Then a shot rings out elicits immediate fear. The soldiers begin to run, gunshots flying everywhere, men start to drop. The boy eventually makes it to the beach where the British armed forces are, 400,000 men trying to leave. 

From there the film follows three separate timelines involving The Mole (the beach where men are trying to escape), the Sea (where British civilians took to their boats for the rescue effort), and The Sky (in which Tom Hardy tries to take out the planes that are killing the waiting men on the beach). Through these three timeline, Nolan transports you into the horror that is the Dunkirk event. Using the large screen format and some stunning sound design, Dunkirk becomes an almost an impressionistic silent film about bravery and cowardice in war. It is the leanest film Nolan has made to date, free of any bloat that sometimes plagues him. He even strips the film of the gore usually found in modern war pictures in favor of striking images that convey true horror. 

Dunkirk fills itself with opposing forces. There is the British versus the unseen Enemy. There is the style of the film feeling both classic and very modern. There are the characters who are often defined by cowardice or bravery. The film itself feels both reflective and immensely intense and fast-paced. With all of these dualities, the film feels like the most Christopher Nolan-esque picture he has made. His intricate weaving of three timelines is a work of choreography only he could pull off. This may sound like it require you to take notes while viewing but that is exactly the brilliance of Nolan's direction here, it is never a chore to keep the timelines in order. There will no doubt eventually be a cut of the film on YouTube in chronological order but it won't be necessary. 

Of the three timelines, The Sea is where the film's heart lies. The storyline here focuses on a father and one of his sons as they sail toward Dunkirk to help. Mark Rylance gives a stirring performance as Mr. Dawson, a man driven by something more than just national pride. He is the soul of the film and often speaks in lines of dialogue that double for the film's themes. "There's no hiding from this," he says to the shell-shocked soldier (Cillian Murphy). Nolan wants us to understand this as well.

If there was anything in the film that doesn't work all the time, it is Hans Zimmer's score. At times, it feels too processed, like something generated from a synth or computer to feel a part of the world Nolan transports us to. At times, it works wonderfully but there is always a sense that a more organic sounding score would have fit the film better.

Like he did with Inception, Nolan has dropped a summer blockbuster full of artistic vision that seems to challenge the very idea of what blockbuster filmmaking should be. Here is a film of immense power and scale that takes creative risks and cerebral chances without trying to play to the lowest common denominator. Nolan has created a rousing war film that manages to stir up a great understanding of nationalism and civic duty without having to resort to iconographic imagery or long speeches. Dunkirk instead creates its own imagery of war and delivers it in a mode something more akin to a silent art house picture.

5/5