In 1940, 400,000 Allied soldiers faced awaited their fate on the beaches of Dunkirk. For nine days, these poor souls endured heavy gunfire and bombardments, while a fleet of civilian ships raced to their rescue. There was no naval fleet or air force to swoop in and save the day. The soldiers had no choice but to wait--to live, or to die.
The 2017 film Dunkirk is an intense cinematic experience that places the audience in line with the soldiers, the sailors, and the airmen. Offering little in terms of character hooks or color, the film immediately dunks the viewers in the madness of war, starting off with men running for their lives in the streets, before following them on land, sea, and air. Three specific perspectives are used to show the battle. One is the shoes of a soldier who does everything he can to find a ship home. Another takes place on the deck of a humble yacht, helmed by an old man and a pair of boys who want to do their part in the evacuation effort. The third happens through the eyes of Spitfire pilots racing to stop enemy bombers and fighters from killing more troops.
Despite each narrative having different lapses of time, they are all interwoven together. It can be a challenge to understand the order of events, since the film will show something happening (such as a plane going down), then follow-up with it again from a different angle. This method creates some fascinating disparities between perspectives, as some characters perceive events in one light, but then audiences see that their views were skewed or wrong. The finale in particular is a complex multi-sided affair, which ambiguously suggests both defeat and victory. The triptych plot also gives the film rhythm, so that it becomes a series of waves that washes over the viewers.
And it will feel like waves and waves of terror. The story by nature is terrifying, and the film is careful to remain understated and let the events speak for themselves. There's little dialogue to this (which will spark some complaints that the characters lack depth or presence). But the actors do succeed in making their struggles painstakingly convincing. It's all amplified by the film's style. Over each scene, Hans Zimmer's score washes over the soundscape with an eerie, creepy sort of industrial ambience. The camera moves organically across the geography--it gets a little rough when it follows the characters on foot and in the tight corridors of ships, but it's very smooth and elegant with the aerial footage. Most of the film is drenched in steely blue and gray--at times, it makes the environments look beautiful, but it becomes hellish when sand and water washes over the characters and threaten to smother them.
That's ultimately the point of all this: the experience of war-time fear. The style and script focus on the hopelessness of the situation, before exploring all the horrifying situations in which soldiers could die: obliterated by bombs, shot by guns, drowned in the hold of a ship, drowned in the cockpit of a sinking plane, struck or crushed by falling structures, and more. With the film showing so much danger and threat, it struck me that there is a (perhaps unintentional) parallel between the English channel and the River Styx. After all, these were men trapped in a state of limbo, being picked off by unseen, faceless enemies, while waiting for a safe crossing. Even if the soldiers get out alive, they still face an ambiguous future where war continues and more will face death.
Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk is an industrial-grade thrill ride. It's looks and sounds steely, cold, and oppressive, but it hits hard--the cinematic equivalent of a Rammstein song. The narrative is rather odd, but it does succeed in dipping audiences into all the dangers of war. With the film's dedication to showing realistic replications of ships and planes used in the evacuation, it's also a faithful and insightful view of historic events I was otherwise unaware of. In spite of this, the film is a valuable experience in its own right.
4/5
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