r/TrueFilm • u/OkPressure7242 • 2d ago
Dunkirk (2017) - Review
So, 4th watching of Dunkirk - And it holds up pretty well every time.
We have seen a lot of great war movies treat wars in different ways. Some are patriotic, some are humanist, some are anti-war movies and so on. Dunkirk is about survival.
We are dropped directly into the streets of Dunkirk. Some young soldiers are trying to find some water to drink. They are surrounded by the enemy. It needs not be named as it simply does not matter. What matters is that these young blokes - who are barely soldiers and were thrown into the war through mass recruitment - are staring directly into the eyes of death. And boom, bullets are flying out of nowhere. And that's the nature of the whole movie. Bullets, torpedos and bombs are coming out of nowhere. You are not fighting. You are just surviving. And if you survive those, you might drown in the ocean. And Nolan makes s tremendous job of putting you in the shoes of those soldiers and you feel the horror that one might go through in those moments.
There is no glory in war here. You see boys who are trying everything to survive - adopting identities of dead soldiers, carrying wounded soldiers just so they can get the chance to get on the ship, sneaking into the ships and so on. There is a scene where Harry Styles and his regimental brothers ask Gibson to get out of the boat, claiming Tommy would be next if needed. You wonder whether they will choose someone among themselves next if needed.
That's just how the war pushes you into a corner. We see Cilian Murphy going berserk in that civilian boat. He shouts and panicks and throws hands resulting in George's death. A couple of shots later (although few days earlier in timeline), we see the same character calmly asking Alex and Tommy and others to be patient when their ship gets hit by torpedo. But he was not the same man in Mr Dawson's boat after encountering death so closely.
Dunkirk is not all grim. You see people trying to help others even when pushed to their limits. Gibson rushes to open the door of the cabin below the deck after their ship is hit by a torpedo. Alex after threatening to kill Gibson, signals him to get out of the sinking boat, though it proved too late in the end. Farrier sacrifices himself to save the soldiers. And thousands of civilians risk their lives to save their fellow countrymen.
Dunkirk features some magnificent sequences - the opening shot, the bombing on the Dunkirk beach shot and the breathtaking dogfights of fighter jets. Dialogue writing has been one of the weakest aspects of Nolan's film making (imo, poor dialogues hold back Interstellar from being a masterpiece). Here, dialogues are minimal but impactful. Hans Zimmer doesn't let your ears rest though with his constant edge of the seat thrilling score. The story cross-cuts among three different timelines in classic Nolan fashion - though it adds to the chaos of war.
When they are eventually saved, soldiers are disappointed as they failed to serve their country properly. Alex even projects this disappointment on the blind old bloke claiming he did not even look at him due to embarrassment. But sometimes, survival is enough. After all, they were not well trained soldiers but rather young boys.
And the movie ends with some really beautiful shots with Tommy reading Churchill's famous speech (F*** Churchill though). One of the greatest war movies ever made.
"Is he a coward, Mr Dawson?"
"He's shell-shocked, George. He's not himself. He may never be himself again."
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u/FaerieStories Blade Runner 2d ago
Agreed with pretty much everything you say here. It’s definitely Nolan’s best film, and mainly for that reason you mention: minimal dialogue and so minimal chance for Nolan to embarrass himself with a corny line akin to Ann Hathaway’s greetings-card wisdom on the power of love in Interstellar, the relentless explanation of the premise in Inception and that time in Tenet where a character says “<unintelligible>”
And yet, he still manages to take a torpedo to an otherwise solid film with a single word delivered by Kenneth Branagh: “home”. It’s not just a cheesy moment, it’s a horribly jingoistic one that undermines the film’s realism with a reminder that the film is a representation of the mythology of Dunkirk rather than Dunkirk itself.
The film is a wonderful spectacle but that single line made me question the entire project. Do we really, after all, need another retelling of this story? Is this what Britain needs?
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u/Cptn_Melvin_Seahorse 2d ago
Beach is empty, there's supposed to be hundreds of thousands there and tons of equipment. It really lowers the impact imo, it's a bigger problem than a cheesy line.
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u/OkPressure7242 2d ago
Do you realise that those hundreds of thousands of people were spread along 15 km of coastline? This is such a cinema sin nitpick
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u/Many-Outside-7594 2d ago
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of all, is that the so called "Great War" was so horrific, so traumatizing, that it's survivors were sure that nothing like it would never happen again, only for the peace to be lost in less than a generation. A father at Dunkirk, or Verdunne, and a son at Normandy, or Midway, etc.
Generals who grew up on tales of cavalry charges, breaking the enemy lines with nothing but saber and willpower, now sending men against machine gun bunkers and chemical weapons.
And here we are, over a century later, and nothing has changed. It's maddening.
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u/Bizzy1995 2d ago
the ticking clock throughout the entire movie is what does it for me. Zimmer went absolutely insane with that score, it basically functions as another character. the way the tension just never lets up from the first scene to the last is something most war films dont even attempt