Dunkirk - Review
Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Finn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Barry Kroghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy
Christopher Nolan has joined a small league of directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg whose names alone attract people to flock to the cinema in their thousands. Their attachment and involvement with any project generates immense excitement and the guarantee of an audience. With this notoriety as one of the most exciting directors of our time, Nolan continues to surprise with his recent picture - a war film concerning the true story of the Dunkirk evacuation.
In May 1940, the British army have been forced to retreat to the French coast, Dunkirk, as Nazis continue to overpower mainland Europe. Over 400,000 men are stranded and, with their short route home obstructed, their chances of survival are diminishing as time passes.
The British writer-director primarily operates within the realm of science-fiction, presenting intricate ideas and unfathomable scale and grounding them and their characters in reality, convincing us that this is the world as we know it. However, with Dunkirk, Nolan ventures into territory we haven't seen him enter before - history. He employs the use of fictional characters to relay this remarkable true story of survival and victory and portray the plight of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers, civilians and air force members, who together, led to the successful evacuation of over 300,000 men.
As a film-maker, Nolan is seemingly fixated with time and has proven to be a master at tempering with temporal structure. Dunkirk is split into three separate narrative strands that take place over three different time periods; one week on the mole and beaches with soldiers, one day in a civilian boat and one hour in a spitfire as it travels over Dunkirk. Eventually, all of these elements of the story intertwine in the purest demonstration of human togetherness. The time motif continues in frequent Nolan collaborator Hans Zimmer's score as it incorporates the metronomical ticking of a clock (lifted from Nolan's very own pocket watch), signalling the imminent approach of the enemy. Zimmer arguably has composed one of the most memorable scores of his illustrious career, swelling appropriately during the moments of hope and promise and equally so in the tensest of sequences.
The tension and suspense begins from the very first scene and doesn't subside for the whole of the taut 106-minute running time, a considerably shorter feature than the director's previous efforts. We're plummeted right into the action, almost standing alongside the soldiers - we experience what they experience an we do so in very real time. Dunkirk opens with Tommy (Finn Whitehead) and a small handful of other comrades ambling through the deserted streets before they come under fire from enemy soldiers. The men run for salvation, with all but Tommy losing their lives. No further set up or explanation is needed to convey the sense of peril or immediacy and with the exception of Branagh's Admiral, little exposition is provided - or needed.
This mentality extends to the non-existent backstory of the featured characters as they are irrelevant in understanding their wants and motivation. Nolan is uninterested in portraying acts of individual heroism, favouring the primal impulse and desire to stay alive - a notion that any audience member can get behind, regardless of the insight or depth we're afforded with the characters. At times, you'll be hard pressed to remember any of the characters names - and even Cillian Murphy's (one of the film's biggest names) role is given the title of "Shivering Soldier" but it doesn't reduce its importance or what it embodies. Ultimately, there is no single character who could be identified as the lead protagonist, reflecting the true nature of war and battle. The miracle of Dunkirk was not achieved single-handedly or as the result of one person's effort; it was the confluence of collective heroism.
A visual and inventive marvel from one of the most ambitiously minded film-makers working today, Dunkirk is a cinematic tour de force and has become an instant classic.
EB
Cast: Finn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Barry Kroghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy
Christopher Nolan has joined a small league of directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg whose names alone attract people to flock to the cinema in their thousands. Their attachment and involvement with any project generates immense excitement and the guarantee of an audience. With this notoriety as one of the most exciting directors of our time, Nolan continues to surprise with his recent picture - a war film concerning the true story of the Dunkirk evacuation.In May 1940, the British army have been forced to retreat to the French coast, Dunkirk, as Nazis continue to overpower mainland Europe. Over 400,000 men are stranded and, with their short route home obstructed, their chances of survival are diminishing as time passes.
The British writer-director primarily operates within the realm of science-fiction, presenting intricate ideas and unfathomable scale and grounding them and their characters in reality, convincing us that this is the world as we know it. However, with Dunkirk, Nolan ventures into territory we haven't seen him enter before - history. He employs the use of fictional characters to relay this remarkable true story of survival and victory and portray the plight of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers, civilians and air force members, who together, led to the successful evacuation of over 300,000 men.
As a film-maker, Nolan is seemingly fixated with time and has proven to be a master at tempering with temporal structure. Dunkirk is split into three separate narrative strands that take place over three different time periods; one week on the mole and beaches with soldiers, one day in a civilian boat and one hour in a spitfire as it travels over Dunkirk. Eventually, all of these elements of the story intertwine in the purest demonstration of human togetherness. The time motif continues in frequent Nolan collaborator Hans Zimmer's score as it incorporates the metronomical ticking of a clock (lifted from Nolan's very own pocket watch), signalling the imminent approach of the enemy. Zimmer arguably has composed one of the most memorable scores of his illustrious career, swelling appropriately during the moments of hope and promise and equally so in the tensest of sequences.
The tension and suspense begins from the very first scene and doesn't subside for the whole of the taut 106-minute running time, a considerably shorter feature than the director's previous efforts. We're plummeted right into the action, almost standing alongside the soldiers - we experience what they experience an we do so in very real time. Dunkirk opens with Tommy (Finn Whitehead) and a small handful of other comrades ambling through the deserted streets before they come under fire from enemy soldiers. The men run for salvation, with all but Tommy losing their lives. No further set up or explanation is needed to convey the sense of peril or immediacy and with the exception of Branagh's Admiral, little exposition is provided - or needed.
This mentality extends to the non-existent backstory of the featured characters as they are irrelevant in understanding their wants and motivation. Nolan is uninterested in portraying acts of individual heroism, favouring the primal impulse and desire to stay alive - a notion that any audience member can get behind, regardless of the insight or depth we're afforded with the characters. At times, you'll be hard pressed to remember any of the characters names - and even Cillian Murphy's (one of the film's biggest names) role is given the title of "Shivering Soldier" but it doesn't reduce its importance or what it embodies. Ultimately, there is no single character who could be identified as the lead protagonist, reflecting the true nature of war and battle. The miracle of Dunkirk was not achieved single-handedly or as the result of one person's effort; it was the confluence of collective heroism.
A visual and inventive marvel from one of the most ambitiously minded film-makers working today, Dunkirk is a cinematic tour de force and has become an instant classic.
EB
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