Review of Dunkirk (2017) by Xan_Ryil — 30 Jul 2017

Christopher Nolan’s movies over the year have become a huge craze and have a sincere fan following. With Dunkirk Mr. Nolan has taken a much different work in his resume. I would start with one of the mostly compelling part of his movies.

Background Score.

Only work I admire of Hans Zimmer is with Christopher Nolan, Whether it’s TDK or Inception or the best to date Interstellar, Hans has always proven to be diverse and mind bending. But with Dunkirk he has gone way too far. Even from the start score is way too heavy for nerves, movie itself is very short but that intensity and pressure is unnecessary from the scenes which should have been all about sound editing and mixing instead of relying on same technique as Chasing scene from TDK and Docking scene from Interstellar. Hans’ work is good but is not needed at most of the time as it makes it all more artificial rather real.

Memento Mori.

We might have missed Chris’ brother Jonathan Nolan, who was absent from writing credits (may be too busy with Westworld) 3rd time since Chris’ breakout film Memento back in 2000. Jonathan was not involved in Insomnia 2003, fan favorite Inception 2010 and now Dunkirk. However he was present in spirit of Memento, a movie which was adapted from his then unpublished short story Memento Mori. Memento was built on a complex web of time lapse and chronology so is Dunkirk. Three different stories of different time period all in 106 minutes and running parallel. To avoid confusion it was displayed at the start how will it be. Although it is beautiful idea, however bringing together three different time periods, by pulling one way too long and shrinking one way too much made it feel uneven and hard to relate to. Movie showed Mole for 7 days and yet not a single night. Mainly because it wanted to focus on its connection to the rest of the two stories.

Chaos without Drama.

One thing Christopher Nolan is notorious to create since TDK is the chaos. That’s something movie shines on. Whether it’s the Mole or Air, there is huge fear over the fate of vessel, plane and the lives. Among characters the confusion and fear has played the best, although the lead felt weaker without any outcome and reaction. Drama throughout was cut off, an element which was criticized to cover up the scientific gaps in Interstellar’s plot. At some level it worked as it maintained the tone of the movie but at other side movie was losing its soul over that. Tag line gave it all.

Usually it’s the trailer, but here it was the tag line “When 400,000 men couldn't get home, home came for them.” For the people who had no idea of events at Dunkirk, who were only out to see another of Christopher Nolan movie, there was nothing left but Kenneth Branagh’s overly expressed emotions as movie moves into the final segment. Beside the plotline, the fabrication of one day at sailing into one week at mole had also taken most of the suspense away when audience know it from the start that home is on its way. Home being many ships only focused on one. With the movie which propelled ensemble cast, focusing on one ship was narrow for the story. Ship itself was sailed by “Mark Rylance” who was miscast for the role as he could not bring what was required to appear as a man willingly walking into the war without any aid. Good thing is….

Those are too many negative words but there are good things about Dunkirk, which could be the Direction. Even with all the wrong choice Nolan made, still movie keeps audience captive at point. Another quality is by default its length which does not make the viewer suffer through completed of second and sometime third hour which most of the war movies do. Cinematography is very good and so is Sound editing and mixing but unfortunately excessive use of background score has taken over those departments. Over all Dunkirk is a nice job but it does not fill up the hopes one walks into theatre with.