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 (081817)
A sustained sense of dread permeates every moment of "Dunkirk," writer-director
Christopher Nolan's (2014's "Interstellar")
impeccably mounted, ceaselessly intense World War II epic. From May 26 to June
4, 1940, an evacuation attempt of 400,000 Allied soldiers took place on the
shores of Dunkirk, France, as German forces closed in from all sides. While this
operation ultimately went down as a defeat for the British and French armies,
more than 338,000 men were transported to safety over a grueling eight-day
period. In war, how can survival be counted as anything other than a victory? It
is this latter point which Nolan vividly makes again and again, not via words
but through frequently astonishing visual storytelling which places the viewer
squarely in the shoes of its brave, frightened, imperiled human subjects.
An immersive experience nearly impossible to sit back and watch with detachment,
"Dunkirk" economically depicts this harrowing event from three vantage
points—land, sea, and air—playing out simultaneously across three time-frames
(one week, one day, and one hour). Its structure is ingenious, cohesively
capturing every side of this struggle without compromising the reality of what,
and how, it occurred, while Lee Smith's (2013's "Elysium")
taut, uncompromised editing is nothing short of tremendous.
We are alongside British Army private Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) from the opening
moments, racing through the eerily barren, paper-strewn city streets and dodging
enemy fire as he makes his way to the beach where hundreds of thousands of
stranded soldiers await rescue. We are with him when he and Army private Gibson
(Aneurin Barnard) try to catch a departing British ship on the harbor's
protective mole, an injured man on a stretcher in their arms and no guarantee
they themselves will be admitted on board. Across the English Channel is Mr.
Dawson (Mark Rylance, 2015's
Bridge of Spies), teenage son Peter (Tom
Glynn-Carney), and Peter's friend George (Barry Keoghan), daring to risk their
safety as they set off on a tugboat for Dunkirk, determined to pick up as many
servicemen as they can carry. In the sky are Royal Air Force fighter pilots
Collins (Jack Lowden) and Farrier (Tom Hardy, 2015's
Mad Max: Fury Road), doing everything they can
to shoot down German aerial bombers before they take more lives.
If these characters feel like they are trapped in a nightmare the likes of which
they never could have imagined only a couple years prior, director Christopher
Nolan makes it his mission to emulate their sense of confusion, desperation, and
terror as best he can. This, above all, is where "Dunkirk" gets its unsparing
power. The quiet lulls, the nervous waiting, the fear of each approaching sound
and the horrors which may be—and likely are—coming at any moment are all
masterfully portrayed. Hans Zimmer's (2016's "Batman
v Superman: Dawn of Justice") music is like the best classic horror
score never before discovered, a threateningly propulsive cavalcade of unearthly
sounds, complexly ominous rhythms, and portentous air raids. Hoyte van Hoytema's
(2015's "Spectre")
cinematography brings scope to the beautiful landscapes and horribly treacherous
strife occurring there. Each technical achievement—and the picture is close to
flawless on this front—adds up, serving to envelop, captivate, and leave one on
edge.
Thorough and comprehensive despite playing out over a tight 107 minutes,
"Dunkirk" gets to the darkened, hellish heart of war. In an ensemble where
character development is kept to a minimum—who would have time to relay their
life story as they struggle to make it out alive, anyway?—the actors are superb
across the board, disappearing into their roles (and this includes musician
Harry Styles, who disappears so fully into his part as outspoken British Army
private Alex he is barely recognizable). If the film is a deft buoy of
continuous suspense, of formidable spatial and action choreography, and of
unsuspecting psychological meditation, one can only dream of what might have
been had the brutality of its violence matched the veracity of its every other
element. Keeping within the boundaries of a PG-13 rating when the gravity of war
should be anything but sanitized, Nolan's virtually bloodless attacks are the
one element that doesn't ring with the same truth as what surrounds it.
Fortunately, his film-making is so assured and so muscular this observation
warrants but a footnote. "Dunkirk" is one of the great war pictures of our time,
deserving of being in the same conversation as Oliver Stone's "Platoon," and
Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan." It's haunting, it's rapturous, and
it's unforgettable. It is also one of the years best films.
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