Unsolicited Movie Review – Dunkirk
It’s the age old question. If you could go back in time what
event would you like relive or even try and change if you could?
There are an infinite number of answers from the birth of
Christ to 9/11 and on and on. Well, I have a new entry. I would like to have
been in the movie executive’s office circa 1999 when they decided to have
Michael Bay direct the upcoming moving Pearl Harbor. Had I been there I would
have gently yet forcefully persuaded them to rethink such a decision and hire
Christopher Nolan for the position. Then, just maybe, we would have had a raw,
emotional, accurate retelling of a quintessential moment in our history that
captured the base communal fear and courage it took to survive an event that
helped define the nature of our national character and not a 3 hour long, CGI
enhanced turd.
Dunkirk, to put it plainly, is a masterpiece.
From the first
minute of the film there is not a single moment to let your guard down
emotionally. There is not one minute to control your senses. There is only a
race against time and an unseen enemy that is palpable and real throughout the entire
movie.
The acting is exceptional all around by stars you know like Kenneth
Brannaugh and Tom Hardy as well as those you don’t, like Fionn Whitehead and
Barry Keoghan. Also, continuing a stellar 32 year-overnight success acting career,
Mark Rylance beautifully encapsulates the stoic, responsible, patriotic, dutiful
British citizen to perfection. He like thousands of others answered the call.
But make no mistake about it, film is a director’s medium and
Nolan has marshaled his team to make a brilliant film. This is not your father’s
war flick. Heck, this is not your war flick. Dunkirk simultaneously makes you
concentrate and distracts you. The sound, not just the music,
is its own character. And it isn’t a showering of noise like you expect in
battle and war films. The sounds are almost laser focused and distinctive to
the fear and desperation Nolan is wrapping you in at the time. The noises and
sounds have feeling and depth all their own. The cinematography expresses scale
and scope like you rarely see on screen. (It reminded me of Lawrence of Arabia.)
Every inch of the frame is important and the camera placements show you angles
and lines and perspective you aren’t used to seeing. This keeps you on
your toes the entire time.
It is also fair to point out that Nolan is famous for
playing with sequence and time in his movies. It is his signature. He does it
here as well but it is not distracting. It’s brilliant. He not only interweaves
three different story lines of three different lengths of time he does so by
showing you every major event from three different points of view: the land,
the air and the sea. Sometimes you don’t even realize it till its over.
And I haven’t even mentioned what a great history lesson it
all is.
Dunkirk is a worthy tribute to the spirit and will of the
soldiers stranded on that beach and the nation that rallied to protect their
protectors. Strong, Calm, Determined, Unflappable…..Britian!
Honest to goodness, at times it took my breath away.
