Dunkirk (A- or 3.5/4 stars)
'Dunkirk' (written & directed by Christopher Nolan, The Prestige, The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception) details the largest evacuation in military history: an epic rescue of 338,000+ Allied troops from Dunkirk, France in the spring of 1940. The Allies were surrounded by the Germans, while the Luftwaffe kept up an incessant presence. Since the waters were too shallow for Royal Navy ships to get close enough to the beach, brave British civilians answered Winston Churchill's call to cross the English Channel in everything from fishing boats to barges to canoes to save the troops. Chris Nolan tells this relentless, suspenseful survival story from 3 brilliantly interwoven perspectives: 1) "The Mole/Land" (infantry on the beach awaiting evacuation); 2) "The Sea" (crossing of the English Channel); and 3) "The Air" (spitfire pilots tasked with stopping Germans from bombing rescue vessels & vulnerable soldiers).
On "Land", the petrified men are personified by the fictional Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), who joins soldier Gibson (Aneurin Barnard) & infantryman Alex (pop singer Harry Styles) in desperation to make it off "the Mole", an 8 ft. wide pier that is overseen by Naval Comm. Bolton (Kenneth Branagh) & Col. Winnant (James D'Arcy). In the "Air", we get the amazing aerial perspective of Farrier (Tom Hardy), a fictional RAF spitfire pilot who has only 1 hour (and dwindling gas) to take out the Nazi planes that are hell bent on killing the allies. And in the "Sea", we follow a small, wooden yacht, captained by courageous - and fictional - Mr. Dawson (Oscar-winning Mark Rylance) with his teen son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) & tagalong buddy George (Barry Keoghan) in tow. En route to Dunkirk, they save a shivering, shell-shocked soldier (Cillian Murphy) from a torpedoed ship. Tragedy & heroics ensue.
What a movie! Bold, haunting, visceral and moving. Nolan takes us inside the horrific experience of Dunkirk + the amazing feat of its evacuation. He eliminates character back stories, but all in service of telling the story's 3 segments quite uniquely ... he does it at different rates of time. The beach segment takes place over 1 week; the sea segment takes 1 day; & the plane segment take 1 hour. This time-jumping might sound confusing, but once you get what the filmmaker is up to, the payoff is great; the segments intersect & allows each story arc to be told from start to finish. Suspense is built in an unrelenting way; where the story can slide from a tense moment in a plane to a tense moment in a boat to an equally tense moment on the beach.
The men we follow are not rich in character, but are embodiments of thousands. As taciturn Tommy, Fionn Whitehead ably represents the everyday soldier desperate to find a way home. Mark Rylance brings warmth & humanity to Mr. Dawson, the small yacht captain driven by patriotic zeal. And though he's masked for most of the time, Tom Hardy is gripping as Farrier, the spitfire pilot engaged in dogfights with the German planes {those aerial dogfights are amazing}. Every character in this film nails how it must have felt to realize that - no matter what they do - this whole clusterf*ck situation just gets worse & worse. As fish in a barrel, they were just trying to live. So for them, glory & honor wasn't on a battle field. That is so powerful, to me, because these amazing survivors felt that their heroics were unearned.
Some critics - most praise the film, and rightfully so - think that 'Dunkirk' lacks an emotional punch. To that, I say: horse pucky! I didn't know if Tommy had a loving father at home, or if Farrier had a pregnant fiancee waiting, or if Alex liked to play cricket and tell dirty jokes -- but it doesn't matter. We follow all these characters from the 1st moment ‘til the end and I felt for all of the people onscreen. The moment when Branagh's character grabs the binoculars, utters the word "home", and the music swells with the subsequent visual out in the sea ... tears were streaming down my face. See, Nolan allows us to feel how these soldiers must have felt; where fear, uncertainty & death was all-around them. I was immersed in their personal struggles.
'Dunkirk' is gripping from beginning to end. Hoyte van Hoyetma's cinematography is astounding; his IMAX cameras give the film an epic scope, and yet, there are effective claustrophobic moments, as well. The production design is incredibly authentic. I LOVED the pulsating constancy of Hans Zimmer's musical score. And the pounding sound design propels the war proceedings. Now, while I think this film is a masterwork, that doesn't mean it's perfect. Some of the ambient noise drowns out the dialogue {an unfortunate Chris Nolan trait}. And while I admire the clipped character development, a little would have gone a long way. But I digress. 'Dunkirk' is a spectacular war film that also plays like a tense, high-octane thriller. Not only is it a staggering visual & sonic spectacle, but its depiction of wartime trauma and its themes of bravery, survival & heroic altruism are what really shook me to my core.
On "Land", the petrified men are personified by the fictional Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), who joins soldier Gibson (Aneurin Barnard) & infantryman Alex (pop singer Harry Styles) in desperation to make it off "the Mole", an 8 ft. wide pier that is overseen by Naval Comm. Bolton (Kenneth Branagh) & Col. Winnant (James D'Arcy). In the "Air", we get the amazing aerial perspective of Farrier (Tom Hardy), a fictional RAF spitfire pilot who has only 1 hour (and dwindling gas) to take out the Nazi planes that are hell bent on killing the allies. And in the "Sea", we follow a small, wooden yacht, captained by courageous - and fictional - Mr. Dawson (Oscar-winning Mark Rylance) with his teen son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) & tagalong buddy George (Barry Keoghan) in tow. En route to Dunkirk, they save a shivering, shell-shocked soldier (Cillian Murphy) from a torpedoed ship. Tragedy & heroics ensue.
What a movie! Bold, haunting, visceral and moving. Nolan takes us inside the horrific experience of Dunkirk + the amazing feat of its evacuation. He eliminates character back stories, but all in service of telling the story's 3 segments quite uniquely ... he does it at different rates of time. The beach segment takes place over 1 week; the sea segment takes 1 day; & the plane segment take 1 hour. This time-jumping might sound confusing, but once you get what the filmmaker is up to, the payoff is great; the segments intersect & allows each story arc to be told from start to finish. Suspense is built in an unrelenting way; where the story can slide from a tense moment in a plane to a tense moment in a boat to an equally tense moment on the beach.
The men we follow are not rich in character, but are embodiments of thousands. As taciturn Tommy, Fionn Whitehead ably represents the everyday soldier desperate to find a way home. Mark Rylance brings warmth & humanity to Mr. Dawson, the small yacht captain driven by patriotic zeal. And though he's masked for most of the time, Tom Hardy is gripping as Farrier, the spitfire pilot engaged in dogfights with the German planes {those aerial dogfights are amazing}. Every character in this film nails how it must have felt to realize that - no matter what they do - this whole clusterf*ck situation just gets worse & worse. As fish in a barrel, they were just trying to live. So for them, glory & honor wasn't on a battle field. That is so powerful, to me, because these amazing survivors felt that their heroics were unearned.
Some critics - most praise the film, and rightfully so - think that 'Dunkirk' lacks an emotional punch. To that, I say: horse pucky! I didn't know if Tommy had a loving father at home, or if Farrier had a pregnant fiancee waiting, or if Alex liked to play cricket and tell dirty jokes -- but it doesn't matter. We follow all these characters from the 1st moment ‘til the end and I felt for all of the people onscreen. The moment when Branagh's character grabs the binoculars, utters the word "home", and the music swells with the subsequent visual out in the sea ... tears were streaming down my face. See, Nolan allows us to feel how these soldiers must have felt; where fear, uncertainty & death was all-around them. I was immersed in their personal struggles.
'Dunkirk' is gripping from beginning to end. Hoyte van Hoyetma's cinematography is astounding; his IMAX cameras give the film an epic scope, and yet, there are effective claustrophobic moments, as well. The production design is incredibly authentic. I LOVED the pulsating constancy of Hans Zimmer's musical score. And the pounding sound design propels the war proceedings. Now, while I think this film is a masterwork, that doesn't mean it's perfect. Some of the ambient noise drowns out the dialogue {an unfortunate Chris Nolan trait}. And while I admire the clipped character development, a little would have gone a long way. But I digress. 'Dunkirk' is a spectacular war film that also plays like a tense, high-octane thriller. Not only is it a staggering visual & sonic spectacle, but its depiction of wartime trauma and its themes of bravery, survival & heroic altruism are what really shook me to my core.