Dunkirk (2017)

It can be something of a daunting experience going into a Christopher Nolan film. One of the more interesting directors able to make big budget, original content in Hollywood, Nolan has established himself as something of a mix between a good M. Night Shyamalan with a Michael Bay who reads books.* The grandiose, epic shots and staging makes for incredibly compelling cinematic experiences, while the thematic - sometimes ambiguous or abstract - nature of his stories often require a bit of a "twist."

Shyamalan is a filmmaker who trapped himself as a schticky director, always feeling and forcing a big, shocking plot twist. The end result is that most of his films disappoint. Nolan frequently relies on a schtick as well. Think of how Momento deals with time, or Insomnia making it so the character doesn't even know the reality of the death of his partner. The Prestige has its big reveal at the end that changes things, or Inception never makes it clear what is real and what is a dream. And, of course, Interstellar does a whole big thing about love transcending time. So when you see a Nolan-directed feature about the battle at Dunkirk in World War II, it's almost...strange. 

What unfolds in Dunkirk is very much not what one might expect from another director. This isn't some gigantic adventure tale a la Steven Spielberg and Saving Private Ryan. However, it is very much what one might expect from Christopher Nolan. Warring isn't so much the focus here as much as it is the sense of isolation and a sense of impending dread. It primarily follows three stories: a fighter pilot, a few soldiers desperate to get out of France, and a civilian boat headed to rescue the boys. Cutting among the three lines, the film is constantly showing what could be a narrow escape, only to have things fall apart at the last moment. Rescue boats are loaded up, take off, and are almost immediately bombed by the Luftwaffe. The soldiers find solace on a destroyer, only to get sunk by a u-boat shortly after. 

The feeling of being completely cut off and unable to flee is enhanced dramatically by Hans Zimmer's score. It probably isn't too much to call it one of his best ever. The music takes an even more prominent role in the film in large part because of how little dialogue there is. Characters don't talk to each other for almost ten full minutes. Though there is plenty of death and destruction, gunfights aren't really a prominent thing (outside aerial ones), so you aren't often overwhelmed by constant sound effects all the time either. The music is front and center, and goes a long way to creating that tense atmosphere. 

The cinematography is gorgeous, with many beautiful shots showing large groups of troops or ships. Dunkirk might be one of those films where the "Making Of" featurette might be just as interesting, if not moreso, than the film itself! Nolan has generally always made good use of practical and special effects, and you might find yourself wondering what shots are of real planes or ships versus real ones. Seeing it in IMAX or XD is probably worth it, especially for the sequences of the aerial battles, but it didn't look like any scenes were specifically filmed for it. The aspect ratio never changes, which is nice (something that probably doesn't annoy anyone other than me as a projectionist), but it's always a bit frustrating when you pay extra for a larger screen and they don't even take advantage of it. I'm still unsure why you'd put a movie in the 2.4 aspect ratio in the theater with the tallest screen. 

Of course, being Nolan means that it can't just be a straight shot. Though he does no big, weird thing at the end, per usual, he still just can't tell the story outright. Instead, he unveils everything through non-linear timing. It starts at a specific point, and then ends at the end, but those three arcs in between those points jumps around. There is a stretch of maybe half an hour that cuts from day to night to day to night without batting an eye. It's actually a bit confusing to watch, in party because it isn't really clear that the film is non-linear until that stretch. Unlike other elements of the film, like the cheesy dialogue from Kenneth Branaugh's Commander Bolton, it's a little unclear what purpose it even serves. It doesn't exactly enhance the theme of the film, nor does it really do anything to increase the tension and dread. It just makes it confusing - and in a way that doesn't make any contextual sense either. Why they can't get out of France is made painfully obvious throughout the film, so it isn't exactly like they want you to feel "as confused as they are." And it isn't like the goings-on of the escape are disorienting on a ground level. 

No, it just feels like Christopher Nolan had a totally fine, straight-forward film and had to do something to spice it up. Like the reveal of The Prestige or the writing of Anne Hathaway's speech in Interstellar,  it doesn't entirely work. Like those past films as well, it doesn't break the film by any means. It's still a very good film. It's just a strange decision that doesn't improve the movie. 

In that way, Dunkirk is the perfect example of my complaints with Nolan as a director. I have liked everyone of his films; they are all very good - borderline great, even. But there's just always something he does that doesn't quite work, and it kind of takes away from it. Dunkirk is absolutely worth seeing. It actually does do enough things well and interestingly that it feels unlike most war movies that came before it. At the same time, it falls just short of being great because the cheesy dialogue is a bit too in-your-face for its own good, and the non-linear timing just makes the film itself confusing at times. It's no infinite, cosmic, cross-dimensional book case, sure, but it's still a fairly flawed, very good film. 

REDUCTIVE RATING: Pretty good!

*I co-opted YouTube film critic MovieBob's description of Nolan, and mixed it with my own, since I don't think either of ours is complete without the other. I can't take credit for saying that Nolan is like Michael Bay for people who read books.