Review of Dunkirk (2017) by Ben P — 25 Jul 2017

Grade - B.

The sound design and scoring of this film is so perfect!

The scoring of this film blurs the line between film score and sound design. The integration of a clicking watch, and the way that the music seamlessly transitions into the sounds of the action (e.g. the sounds of planes and many other things) and then back again, gave the score an equal footing to the image. each intensifying the other. This film can be considered a musical piece accompanied by image as much as vice versa.

The movement of the movie is plodding, and even when the slow pace of the movie is punctuated by action the intensity the action rings hollow, as the characters all are hardly characters at all.

(Spoilers after this).

The unique flow of time in this movie though interesting as an artistic endeavor accomplishes the exact opposite of what I believe it was intended to, in that, the week long endeavor of the men on the beach feels like it took place over a much shorter period than it should feel like in comparison to the men on the sea and in the air.

Because the week long, day long, and hour long storylines take place in an interwoven way the perception of time for the men on the beach, which should be arduously slow, as they are waiting a entire week to get off of a beach that at any moment could be overrun by Germans, is obliterated, while on the other hand the perception of time for the pilots which should have been blazingly fast - especially do to numerous action filled events of their flight - felt to the audience as if it took place over at the very least an entire 12 hour day. For the men on the sea, this dragging out of time, is analogous to the men in the air, but to a lesser degree.