Review of Dunkirk (2017) by Asif A — 12 Sep 2017

DUNKIRK: A CONTROLLED CHAOS.

Around a minute and a half into the movie, the first rifle shot reverberates in the French town of Dunkirk and makes its way all the way up to your spine. The sound design feels painfully accurate and you then realise frame by frame, that Nolan has upped his ante in every area of his and his brilliant team's film-making skills, which has led to this movie which is more of a full-body sensory experience. Every scene from the first to the last oozes with the metronomical precision possessed by Nolan. At a runtime of just 107 minutes it is almost comically short for a world war movie as per the traditional stereotypes. But trust Nolan to break new grounds in story-telling. A traditional war film follows this template or a mix of it in some way: background story of few soldiers, old and ragged men recounting their good days over a campfire, blood gore and broken bones, abusive vocabulary to make it sound authentic, a brotherhood among them all which ebbs and flows with the script. All of this interwoven with a few blockbuster action set pieces. Now "Dunkirk" dispossesses off with almost everything in that template, there are no flashbacks, no warm home stories, no history of camaraderie among the soldiers. It is just a 107-minute long action set piece laced with terse dialogues.

To tell the story of "Dunkirk" Nolan resorts to dividing the screentime among the three elements the soldiers are facing on the beach i.e. land, sea and air. Each story informs and plays off the others. (It's classic Nolan, as he's always had a propensity for layering stories). The land (the mole) story is told over a week, the sea (moonstone) story is told over a day and the air (spitfires) story is told over an hour. Nolan likes to play around with time in each of his movies, and however improbable it may sound on the outside, it is this exact way of his to tell the story that envelopes all the elements slowly onto the stranded soldiers. And it ends up with a vice like grip over the audience over all three elements towards the end where the move is reaching its crescendo. The storyline is relentless just like the enemies. Speaking of which, not even a single shot of the "enemies" is shown on screen. They are not even termed by nationality but only as "enemy" throughout the movie. This was to portray that the enemy doesn't have a face and its danger is omnipresent. Also this movie has a PG-13 rating which means it has minimal blood being shown on screen. For a war movie that is unheard of, but it works for a movie that has done away with so many stereotypes.

The cast for "Dunkirk" is absolutely spot on. Unlike other war movies which used older actors for the role of the soldiers, Nolan has went ahead and cast brilliant actors like Fionn Whitehead, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard who very much resemble the fresh and baby faced soldiers that actually were present during the world wars. Tom Hardy plays the role of an RAF pilot but his face is covered whole time by his mask in the jet but still grabs attention via his expressive eyes. The star of the movie is Mark Rylance who plays a pivotal role with such finesse. It is his innate calmness that personifies the success that it was at Dunkirk. The dialogues are few and far between, but with a couple or so lines Rylance marks his territory in this very visual movie, which is extremely commendable.

"Dunkirk" looks like a million bucks during each frame. Credit goes to Nolan's cinematographer Hote van Hoytema of Interstellar fame. If you thought Interstellar was visually stunning, then boy! Hasn't he got a treat for you. Installing IMAX cameras wherever he found it possible to cram into a fighter jet cockpit, wing, fuselage and alongside stretcher on the beach, long undisturbed shots of the beach, within cabins of sinking ships, underwater while the water above is on fire, every shot makes u feel right there in the moment. His long time production designer Nathan Crowley deserves a mention as well because I honestly cant my finger upon any scene which wasn't VFX. The ships and spitfires sinking couldn't be more realistically depicted. The sound design is by far the best I have ever experienced. Every crack of that Spitfire's Rolls Royce Merlin engine beats your heartbeat into submission, the firing exchanges, the explosions, the water wooshing, it was all just surreal. And Hans Zimmer always plays a perfect foil for Nolan to develop his film's intensity around. From the ticking of the clock to the pure heart-throbbing numbers, Zimmer never allows you to rest. His maniacal depiction of the battle via sounds is all the incentive we need to hold on to the edge of our seats.

Honestly, this movie is a smorgasbord of talents and every frame of it has been painstakingly developed from a mental image into a reality. Among the three threads of storytelling, my favourite was the Spitfire one. It is a visual treat like no other. A titanic duel told by strapping the audience onto its wings and asking them to try to hold on!

Christopher Nolan has transformed the world of action film storytelling completely. "Dunkirk" looks like a painting in every scene, which is a result of a director at his absolute best. Previous naysayers about his story telling abilities would get ample reasons to reconsider their positions. Whereas for myself, I am thrilled to put this movie at par with the greats like Saving Private Ryan, Apocalypse Now, and Letters from Iwo Jima. Only time will tell if this ranks as his best work ever, but technically it absolutely is. "Dunkirk" is a truly visceral experience which needs to be seen big (IMAX) and then to be seen once again.

My Rating: 5/5.