Review of Dunkirk (2017) by Huraxdax — 27 Jul 2017

Honestly, when I first left the movie theater after watching Dunkirk, I thought it was not really a great movie, especially not from somebody like Christopher Nolan. Over the course of a night of good sleep and one not-too-busy day with a lot of thinking, I've changed my mind. Although I still don't consider it his best movie - not even his second- or third-best one - I do see the "Nolan-touch" in it, which is always a good thing. Let me explain.

The most important point to eventually change my mind was how great of a war movie Dunkirk is. Not a movie, a war movie. I like that the main Characters didn't get introduced too much, nor got a big background story. Over time, they don't develop like you would expect from a typical modern movie. They just happen to be the 'chosen ones' for the movie, among 400,000 other men with just the same fate. I feel like this gives the whole war setting a much more authentic and believable touch to it, because nobody speaks of 'heroes'. They're all just soldiers. Another thing I enjoyed were the intersections of some of the sub-plots. The parallel events created a sense of unity in the main plot which brings me to a side of the movie that I didn't like. The idea of having three sub-plots happening over three different time periods is good, but the way it is introduced isn't. The only hint we get as to how long each sub-plot plays out and where it begins and ends is right at the beginning of the movie, when there are three shots, introducing the perspectives air, land and sea. In each shot, a time period is stated. One week for land, one day for the sea and one hour for the air. The only plot that has a nice pace throughout the movie is the sea. I found myself being most fascinated by the sea plot and caring the most about it. Partly also because it was the easiest to follow. While the land part happened much too quickly for the risky endeavor it really was, the air-part repeated itself 4 times with the same dogfight-scene, thus got pretty boring (and unrealistic, given the authenticity of the rest of the film) towards the end. It took me pretty long to figure out that the time-periods in the beginning indicated how long each of the three plots lasted in real life. That, combined with the three plots being shown literally parallel makes for a pretty confusing experience at times. Although Nolan has repeatedly proven to be the master of confusion in earlier movies, this time it didn't quite work for him. On the other hand, so many things did work. The scene towards the end, where the boat we follow in the "sea" part reveals to be one of hundreds coming to rescue the soldiers worked great. The cinematography, the sometimes dark, sometimes turquoise look of the film combined with the mind blowing sound belongs to the best audio visual cinema experiences I've ever witnessed. And most of all, the mood of war, the hopeless brutality and endeavor, the sheer insanity of that scenario works exceptionally well. What can I say, Chris Nolan just knows how to make a great movie.

Over all, it's a mixed bag. The ideas Nolan put into the movie are great and show his talent as a filmmaker, but the way he ended up realizing them doesn't quite make for an entertaining movie. I see this movie as one that you truly enjoy the second time you watch it, because the first time you're busy figuring out what happens where and especially when. It's not the typical war-movie. It's not a typical movie at all. You have to in the mood for a movie that has more in common with a documentary than with a hollywood movie, but at the same time wants to be a hollywood movie (and is one, regarding sound ans visuals). Maybe it's just the wrong genre for a director like Nolan.