Review of Dunkirk (2017) by Arthur G — 22 Jul 2017

When a film is aesthetically stunning but lacks character or narrative momentum it can leave the viewer feeling cheated; usually at the narrow, craven commercial imperatives that have throttled any chance of depth or originality.

For any regular cinema goer this is an all too familiar feeling of disappointment. And the more shiny, hollow films you sit through, the less forgiving you become. The more genuine craft in the presentation, the greater the disenchantment when the story fails to engage. The Revenant, by way of example, left me just as cold as the cast.

But when a film combines extraordinary aesthetic potency with dubious politics the experience goes beyond discouragement and becomes physically unsettling. It creates a queasy sense of misalignment, like travel sickness; the eyes see one thing, the sense of balance tells the brain something completely different. Zack Snyder's 300 is both dazzling and unwatchable.

By the end of Dunkirk my stomach was churning. I could not get away fast enough. My understanding of balance simply does not correlate with the film's.

Much like The Revenant, there is much to praise in the craft of the crew, and the vision of the director. Every frame deserves to be remembered. The beach, sea and sky are a ferocious, morbid canvas. The nervous tick of time running out and the demonic howling planes at once bristle and seduce, pulling you into the hostile environment.

But any film about a real war in which the enemy is represented only as a menacing, unthinking, dehumanised machine is propaganda.

It is not, perhaps, the most extreme form of propaganda. It is not fake news. It is not a Potemkin village.

But it is, by definition, evangelising bias. Nolan's Dunkirk is a story about a real war in which only one side includes humans.

It is designed to reinforce a national myth. It is designed to draw in the tribe; to honour the hearth.

Nolan has form. Hooray for billionaires who put themselves above the law! America, unable to face it's bloodsoaked history, builds national myths that stay firmly in the realms of fantasy. Political capital is unhampered by a cape.

The Mcguffin in Dunkirk is "Home;" whispered with reverence by gurning actors, fighting manfully to make their liturgy convincing.

It is not.