Dunkirk

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Every now and then, a movie comes along that caters to an audience based more on an "experience" than an actual story with well-developed characters. Trust me, it sounds more negative than it really is. It is my belief that if a movie manages to entertain, it does it's job on some level. This can be done with great stories and great characters, which is what usually happens. However, I think one can be just as taken in with technical aspects of the film if they're done in a unique and beautiful way. 'Dunkirk', for me, is one of these movies.

Codenamed "Operation Dynamo", the Dunkirk evacuation took place between May 26 and June 4, 1940, during the Battle of France. Approximately 400,000 British, French and Belgian troops were cut off and surrounded by Germans, as they advance into France. Under cover from ground and air, the allied troops were methodically evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk using serviceable naval and civilian vessels.

The movie shows the story from three different perspectives; in short - "The Mole" shows us Tommy's (Fionn Whitehead) story on land, as he tries like hell to get off the beach; "The Sea" follows Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance) and his two sons, as they act as part of the civilian rescue team; finally, "The Air" follows three Spitfire pilots who are providing air cover, namely Farrier (Tom Hardy) and Collins (Jack Lowden).

Getting back to my original point about this being more of an "experience" movie, that lies in a couple of things. The first of those being that, for the most part, I didn't get terribly emotionally invested in any of the characters. Some may disagree, but just know that in my mind, that sort of thing IS passable here. The effect Nolan was going for here, speaking from a technical standpoint, seems to be an immersive experience above all else. He wanted to make a movie, without the need for 3D, that still makes you feel like you're a part of the action.

This movie was filmed using REAL Spitfires with IMAX cams strapped onto the side of them. This makes a lot of the aerial shots look beautiful. You even get the sound of the plane's engines surrounding you; a subtle detail that seems to get left out of a lot of war movies when bringing us to a cockpit's perspective. Above that, the sound mixing and editing is absolutely Oscar-worthy. It's probably one of the best technical movies I've ever seen, and certainly the best overall I've seen yet this year. This gives me a great admiration for someone like Christopher Nolan in that he still hasn't caved when it comes to 3D technology. He probably won't, either, because he's STILL able to give us a hell of an experience without it. 'The Dark Knight', 'Inception', and 'Interstellar' were all still visually pleasing without the need.

The only true criticism I had with this was some of the dialogue. I dunno if I'm alone on it, but I didn't understand what was being said a lot of the time due to a combination of thick accents and mumbling. This may have helped me get more emotionally invested as well, and I think comprehensible speech is often one of Nolan's faults. For this, I plan to see it again. He is, otherwise, a brilliant director. This wasn't extremely story-driven so much as tension-driven, but I think he was going for something a bit different this time around. He clearly needs no extra practice in story-telling with his past projects, and remains one of my favorite directors.

5/5

 

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