Dunkirk Review

Dunkirk Movie Review:

From his very first film (Memento) Chris Nolan has been obsessed with using TIME as his narrative tool. From Batman Begins, The prestige to Interstellar, he has used this tool effectively many times.

So his effort in contributing to the WAR film Genre also uses this narrative tool.

THIS is NOT A Spoiler….

The movie runs in three separate stories.

1. The beach – Plays out over a week.

2. The Boat – Plays out over the course of a day

3. The Place – Takes place in the span of an hour.

If the viewer misses this important cue about the film, the rest of the film can feel like a jumbled mess. Which it is definitely not.

So now we have events taking place in on story which overlaps another story and so on…

This and using strings and a clock beat to the background music, makes this film unique in this genre. The pacing is super tight and very very tense. The film tries very hard not to slow down at all, so even the slower scenes have a rhythmic clock tick sort of music to it.

The plot is quite simple. The British and French armed forces are stuck at Dunkirk and they are waiting for rescue / evacuation on a large scale.

This story could have become a melodrama fest with lots of sobbing and teary eyes. But instead Nolan keeps it matter of fact, no jingoism, no needless British patriotism (he IS British, least people forget). This is film is all about showing the horrors of war and the toll it takes on a person without going down the drama route. The tense is felt in the music, the atmosphere, the acting and the pacing. Not in the dialogs of emotions.

But that is not to say the film is devoid of emotion, it just SHOWS you a scene and lets you feel the emotion rather than dictating what you are supposed to feel.

These above things, make this one of the best war genre films ever made.

Not to mention, all of the film barring maybe 1 or 2 scenes is all practically shot minus CGI. That hugely adds to the film’s authenticity.

The aim of this film is to tell this story of the biggest civilian helped evacuation of an army in all of history. It doesn’t show the war fare, the gore, just the plain and simple facts.

In the acting department, everyone is pretty good as is expected in a Nolan film, but other than Tom hardy, no one really stands out too much, mostly that is intentional, this is about a group effort, but films need a few central characters to narrate a story, or it becomes a documentary.

Kenneth Branagh is good as the admiral (or some high rank) of the Navy and his is the role which shows the gravitas of the British forces and their dignity under fire.

Rating: Just as a WAR FILM, I would rate this a 9.5/10. But compared to this director’s masterpieces over the years, as a NOLAN film, this would come somewhere in at 8/10. Pretty good, but not his film till date. But a GREAT change from Sci-Fi and super heroes to a real incident.

Final Rating : 8.5/10.