Dunkirk

Reviewed by: Nick Evans

Score: 9/10

Recommendation: IMAX

Summary: A divisive masterpiece that deserves the love that people may fake.

Review:

After the end of the "Great War", or "The War to End All Wars," no one could have imagined that a century later students would practically skim over World War I in order to study a much larger, much more deadly conflict. World War II has become the subject of films for the better part of the century, trying to capture the horrors that the Greatest Generation had to endure. Dunkirk is the latest film set in World War II and is determined to show the horrors and heroes of the war through a unique approach.

Dunkirk was directed by Christopher Nolan (Inception, Interstellar, The Dark Knight trilogy) and stars Tom Hardy, Fionn Whitehead, and Mark Rylance. It tells the story of how more that 338,000 soldiers were evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk (northern France) to nearby England. That would be a spoiler if it wasn't, you know, history. The story follows three sets of characters through the evacuation: a pilot, a soldier trapped on the beach, and a civilian sailor.

Something I believe is very important to understanding this movie to its fullest is to understand beforehand that time is not linear in the film. The story of the soldier takes a full week to transpire, while the sailor's story happens in only a day and the pilot's story lasts only an hour. What that means is that at the beginning of the film, the soldier is still a week away from being evacuated, while the pilot in mere minutes from the eventual evacuation. Knowing this will help you understand the story even though it is presented in a unique way.

The story of Dunkirk is different than many other war films, and unique from many other films in general. The most obvious difference is that there is basically no character development. All you know about these characters at the end of the film is that they are British. That's about it. Character development is either non-existent or secondary to the rest of the film. The film isn't about characters, it is just about war. War is indiscriminate, it doesn't only take the lives of the weakest. Dunkirk is simply a story of survival, heroism, and duty that the British people experienced during WWII.

Many critics have already pointed out the music and gunshots. I wanted to briefly address this as well. The gunshots are shockingly loud against the relatively quiet soundtrack. But that's not all, at no point do we see any German soldiers in the film*. The bullets seem to come out of nowhere. I would be lying if I didn't admit to jumping a few times when the sound of bullets echoed through the theater. It goes back to what the film is about. Those who died at Dunkirk weren't any less worthy of surviving, just unlucky. Anyone could have been in the wrong spot at the wrong time. It gives the film a sense of randomness where anyone can die at any moment with no warning. The audience is left on the edge of their seats the entire time because there would be no warning before the next shots.

Dunkirk has many of what we have come to expect from films by Christopher Nolan: beautiful IMAX shots, obsessed/driven characters, and a constant foot on the gas to keep the plot rolling. I loved Dunkirk and thought it was a strong film but also recognize that it was a very different film. The lack of a character to connect to might turn some off. I believe that the human struggle to survive and to put your life in risk for someone else was enough to make these characters important to the audience even if we don't know anything about them. I award Dunkirk with 9 civilian boats out of 10.