Green Goblin Reviews: Dunkirk
I must admit that my knowledge of Christopher Nolan’s work is somewhat limited. What I have been able to glean in the broad strokes is that he is a director that likes to focus more on the mechanics of a given scene that he’s shooting more so than the characters that inhabit said scene. This is not a derision. Just an observation. Yes, he’ll give his characters motivation, but only because he’s obligated to do so and it gives him the tools he needs to tie one expertly choreographed scene together with another. The actual emoting tends to be hit-or-miss, depending on whomever the studio decides to place in any given role. And I can say that this has never been more distilled than it is in the film Dunkirk.
Set on the shores of Dunkirk, this film takes place over three separate locations and three separate time frames that all culminate with the rescue efforts of the Dunkirk evacuation; rescuing roughly 300,000 British and French soldiers off the coast of France and ferrying them across the English channel. What’s interesting about the time frames is that they’re all either stretched out or shortened, depending on what the film needs to maintain cohesion and to allow them all to come together at the crux of the film. Our first perspective takes place over the course of a week on the shore and tells the story of a young British private named Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) as he and others attempt to make their way upon ships and avoid being plucked off by German fighter pilots who have surrounded the entire region (“Why bother with tanks, when they can pluck us off from the air, like shooting fish in a barrel?”). The second perspective comes from a weekend mariner (Mark Rylance) and civilians as they heed Churchill’s call for rescue boats and takes place over the course of a single day. The final perspective is from three British air force pilots (one of whom is played by Tom Hardy), flying over to provide air support during the rescue efforts and takes place only over about an hour.
If it seems as though that breakdown of the plot seems a little barren, that’s deliberate. Not just by me, but by the film as well. As we’ve established, this film is not made for the background motivations of any given character. They all have the same motivation as literally everyone else shown in this movie: survive and get back to England. It’s only through these characters’ eyes that we’re seeing this venture take place. And it’s rare that we see a World War II film with so very little direct battle (even rarer to see one, where the Americans haven’t entered the fighting yet). We never even see the face of a German soldier and that’s by design. These soldiers on the ground and the citizens attempting to rescue them aren’t trying to reclaim the area or take down a legion of the enemy. They’re all just trying to make it alive to the next day and get back home. And on that feeling of desperation and fear, this film genuinely delivers. With a brilliantly tense score composed by Hans Zimmer and wonderful cinematography, the entire audience of the theater I was in never left the edge of their seats.
I’d say the only real flaw is that there isn’t much else to have in the film. There are no character arcs, apart from Brady’s character attempting to be recognized as the most badass British pilot of the whole damn war and even that is pretty underplayed, to set the stage for more images of sinking British battleships and drowning soldiers. I know it’s done to instill a feeling of hopelessness above all else as the lives of all these men are virtually interchangeable in the grand scheme of things, but the film almost does this job too well. Case in point, I could not tell you the names of any primary protagonists, leaving this film. In addition to that, there’s very little spoken dialog. Quite a large degree of the plot is conveyed via the establishing and triggering of various set-pieces and disaster imagery. It’s not to say the film leaves you feeling drawn out of the scenes at hand. Far from it, you feel firmly invested in the well-being of the characters on screen. But once the film is done, it becomes very easy to completely forget about them.
It wouldn’t be fair to say that there isn’t a lot of meat on the bones with this film. There’s plenty of meat. Instead, it really could just do with a bit of seasoning.
7/10 This is a solid dad film. Worth seeing on the big screen now and worth stopping for, if you’re channel surfing on a late Sunday afternoon. .
Just went to see it. I think it’s good, but disappointing for Nolan. He hasn’t been able to top Memento for years.