Five stars. Rated PG-13, for intense war violence and occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.21.17
Christopher Nolan doesn’t merely
spin a crackling good yarn; he tells it in a provocative, wildly imaginative
manner.
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| Thousands of Allied soldiers wait anxiously on the "mole" — a narrow, kilometer-long, wood-boarded breakwater that pokes precariously out into the cold waters of the English Channel — while praying they'll be able to board a rescue ship before being strafed by Luftwaffe Messerschmitts. |
His fascination with nonlinear
storytelling began with Following and
Memento — the latter ingeniously
unfolding both forwards and backwards — and ultimately became too much in Inception (a dream within a fantasy
within a head trip within a nod to Orson Welles ... quite overcooked, but
audacious nonetheless).
Dunkirk does not succumb to such excess, although
some viewers may be perplexed by how its three parallel storylines intersect
... until the penny drops, resulting in a richly satisfying — dare I say
exhilarating — A-ha! moment.
This film is a masterpiece: a
compelling, ingeniously conceived and choreographed slice of suspenseful,
nail-biting history transformed into a thoroughly absorbing drama. Everything
connects here, starting with the superlative work turned in by a huge ensemble
cast composed primarily of unfamiliar faces and a few high-profile character
actors.
Nolan both wrote and directed
this stunning slice of edge-of-the-seat cinema, and I wouldn’t be surprised if
he also came up with the attention-grabbing tag line: “When 400,000 men
couldn’t get home ... home came for them.”
Remember being riveted, in 1998’s
Saving Private Ryan, by Steven
Spielberg’s 20-minute handling of the Normandy Beach landing sequence?
Nolan ups that ante. Dunkirk maintains that level of suspense
and peek-between-your-fingers anxiety for its full 106 minutes. You literally
dare not blink during his ticking-clock handling of simultaneous narratives
that come together brilliantly, in time for a climax that’s no less triumphant,
for our prior knowledge of how the story concludes.
The drama comes from the skillfully
sketched, ground-level characters, whose fates we most definitely don’t know, history notwithstanding.
This is a snapshot of a seminal
event during the early days of World War II: an incident that began with a
ghastly military disaster, but concluded with an amazing miracle that
demonstrated anew — here’s a lesson worth repeating — how individual civilians
absolutely can make a massive, heroic
difference.
Nolan doesn’t supply much
back-story. Ergo, in the interests of full understanding:
During the spring of 1940, German
armies rapidly charged through Belgium, the Netherlands and France, trapping
British, French and Belgian troops along the northern coast of France. The
Allied troops literally had nowhere to go, backed against the waters of the
English Channel. The shallow-drafted beaches and harbor outside Dunkirk made
landing impossible for the large British naval ships, and 21-foot tides further
exacerbated the situation.
Ferrying men out to deeper water
was a painfully slow process, and a dangerous one; the beaches — and anchored
ships — were constantly strafed and bombed by the Luftwaffe. The Allied troops
could only wait their turn and watch, helplessly, as the German planes were
challenged by the plucky pilots navigating the often badly damaged Royal Air
Force Spitfires, which could cross the channel and dogfight only for scant
minutes, before their limited fuel tanks forced a return trip.
The Allied troops seemed doomed.
Until...
Across the channel in England, a
scant 26 miles away, folks weren’t about to put up with that. The British navy
put out a call, and it was answered; the result was a flotilla of hundreds of
fishing boats, pleasure craft and even lifeboats, in many cases piloted by
determined civilians.
Nolan depicts what happened — the
actual evacuation took place from May 26 through June 4 — with a we-are-there
intensity from three viewpoints.
We first meet Tommy (Fionn
Whitehead, an impressive big-screen debut), a young soldier who barely survives
enemy fire in a neighboring town, before joining the hundreds of thousands of
other soldiers on the Dunkirk beaches. He encounters Gibson (Aneurin Barnard),
another young soldier; they wordlessly bond through necessity, their subsequent
experiences the stuff of nightmares.
Over in England, the stoic,
stalwart Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance) takes his small yacht — the Moonstone — into
the channel, assisted by his 19-year-old son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney). Just as
the boat casts off, they’re joined by Peter’s impulsive, 17-year-old friend
George (Barry Keoghan). This younger lad views the affair as a larkish
adventure, having no sense of what’s happening 26 miles away.
High in the sky, three Spitfires have
just taken off for Dunkirk. The senior RAF pilot is Farrier (Tom Hardy), who
maintains constant communication with Collins (Jack Lowden) and their third
winged colleague. They’re not even halfway across the channel when they
encounter a trio of yellow-noised Messerschmitts.
The aerial sequences here — and
throughout the film — are stunning. Beyond exciting. Spellbinding to a degree
that, frankly, defies my stock of adjectives.
Hoyte Van Hoytema’s aerial
cinematography is jaw-dropping, and editor Lee Smith wisely avoids staccato
cuts, instead holding on longer takes to give us a cockpit’s-eye sense of the
dizzying difficulty pilots had, when trying to line up shots on a target that
dances and darts like a huge hummingbird. (You’ll want to see this film on as
large a screen as possible.)
Nolan and Smith maintain this level
of intensity in all three narratives, the suspense further enhanced by Hans
Zimmer’s throbbing, heartbeat-esque score: the music so ubiquitous that it
feels like a single lengthy symphony carrying us through the entire film.
Zimmer adds to our agitation by using a Shepard scale, which creates the
auditory illusion of a tone that continually ascends in pitch, despite never
seeming to get any higher: a disorienting and highly effective technique.
Zimmer also augments his score
with snatches of Edward Elgar’s soaring “Nimrod,” a stirring anthem often
played at British funerals and memorial services. Sound designer/editor Richard
King further tweaks the audio palette with engine sounds — always accelerating
— and a relentlessly ticking watch.
Although Nolan deserves top marks
for orchestrating all of these elements into an immersive cinematic package, he
earns — and maintains — our hearts and minds with his story’s compelling characters.
Rylance is the epitome of
unflappable British composure, his intelligence and resourcefulness a balm that
soothes his younger companions. Once this film makes the rounds, all the
posters, mugs and Smart phone cases that bear the iconic British phrase — “Keep
calm and carry on” — could just as easily replace those five words with a photo
of Rylance’s Mr. Dawson.
Glynn-Carney and Keoghan feel
more like 1940s British lads than coached actors. Hardy and Lowden, despite
being concealed most of the time behind pilot’s masks, deliver impressive levels
of dramatic passion. Lowden, when we do see his face, carries a weight of
maturity that we sense, despite his youthful features.
Whitehead, Barnard and Damien
Bonnard — as another frightened young solider met on the beach — have the
disadvantage of looking quite similar, particularly when drenched by seawater
and coated by the debris from nearby bomb blasts. It’s difficult to distinguish
them, but that could be deliberate, signifying their status as the countless,
nameless young men trying to survive such chaotic circumstances.
Kenneth Branagh is suitably
grim-faced as Commander Bolton, the senior naval officer charged with
organizing the arrivals and departures of boats and ships. He’s assisted by
James D’Arcy, equally persuasive as ranking army officer Col. Winnant. These
two men are among the very few, early on, who know of — and pray for —
Operation Dynamo.
Cillian Murphy is memorably
heartbreaking as the never-named, shell-shocked survivor of a torpedoed ship;
he’s rescued by the Moonstone en route to Dunkirk ... and is terrified by the
thought of going back to that
nightmare.
Dunkirk is a massive endeavor: the sort of splendidly
assembled and choreographed endeavor that goes back to Hollywood’s “cast of
thousands” origins. It succeeds so well — as drama, history and thrill-a-minute
suspense — due to what must have been meticulous planning by Nolan, on a truly
astonishing scale.
The result speaks for itself. Dunkirk is one for the ages.
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