Dunkirk delves more into the psychological effects of war rather than trying to get you to like and admire a great character who got pushed to all kinds of limits, tested beyond our imagination and then becoming a role model for us. 400000 men comprising of Allied soldiers from England, France and Belgium are stranded on a beach, surrounded by Germans inching closer to them every minute. Due to inadequate resources, instead of sending these men reinforcements, the leaders choose to evacuate as many men as possible from the beach back home and prepare to defend London. Instead of reinforcements, these men are rescued by their own people, coming in civilian boats and luxury yachts. Survival is victory is literally the theme of this movie.
The movie is being shot from three different perspectives, land, air and water. We don't get fixated to one particular character, instead we see how important the collective work of every single person in the war matters for each of them to survive. The three main characters include the veteran actor, Mark Rylance, a civilian boat sailor, our favourite Tom Hardy leading the skies and Kenneth Branagh, the commander of the British army. We don't really get a lot of time with all these characters because something is always happening. There's no time to know if they have a wife or a child waiting for them to come back home, its all in the moment. While a lot of us might think its poor character development, I think overall, it was a great move. Nolan tried to make his movies as realistic as possible and in a real war situation, I don't think there would be time to think about family and friends, its all about survival and that's what Dunkirk is all about.
Fionn Whitehead makes his first appearence and One Direction star, Harry Styles makes his debut on the big screen as well. There wasn't really much dialogue for these two except once every ten minutes or so, mostly a one liner, especially for Fionn Whitehead. That could be an issue with the movie, but then again, soldiers would want to get home instead of trying to come with up with really awesome dialogues. There are so many messages hidden in the smallest things in this movie, its going to take me a few more dedicated hours of watching, there are times where I discover something new even now when I rewatch inception even after some hundred rounds. Scores of soldiers burn along with oil leaking from ships, there's fantastic scenery of the sea and some beautiful shots of the sky while fighting in against enemy planes and tons of soldiers are always drowning in the sea almost every five minutes or so. Dunkirk made me feel like I was sitting right next to these shivering soldiers holding on to dear life, that's how realistic it was. I don't know if its just me, but the scenes shot in the sea made me feel like I was in Miller's planet from Interstellar and I loved it.
There were very little special effects, real ships and planes were used and the whole movie was shot where the actual incident of the evacuation took place. Its stuff like this that separates Christopher Nolan from any other director, minimal use of green screen, using IMAX cameras, basically enhancing the movie watching experience of the viewers. He's a master with the camera in addition to being a genius and that's why he has a huge fan base all over the world.
My review wouldn't be complete if I don't mention my favourite composer, Hans Zimmer. I have already started including Dunkirk's tracks in my playlist and its just so perfectly executed in the movie. Horror, fear, hope, despair all these emotions are displayed masterfully with the help of Zimmer's ecstatic soundtracks. We know how unorthodox and epic his tracks for Inception and Interstellar were and he does something very similar here, filling the air with eery, insecure, horrifying, strange music therby getting us to the edge of our seats.
Dunkirk is a visual spectacle, I can't wait to see it again in IMAX, the scenery was beautiful, Tom Hardy once again acts beautifully with his eyes, I don't understand why directors don't like the middle and lower thirds of his face, he's always having stuff to cover his face and he was certainly my favourite character in Dunkirk followerd by Mark Rylance and Kenneth Branagh. Cilian Murphy, Harry Styles and Fionn Whitehead were good choices too but there's much more to Dunkirk than connecting to a particular character and I think that's what separates Dunkirk from Saving Private Ryan or Hacksaw Ridge making this the best war movie that I have ever seen, for a change exploring the psychological trauma soldiers experience.
This cannot be rated as the best or the worst of Nolan's movies because they're all different genres and I'm just happy to have had a chance to experience watching his movies. I really hope Hans and Nolan have a lot more to offer and I'm happy that Nolan is able to do just as well in any other genre, continuing to bludger our brains, not giving us a moment to breathe and constantly keeping our minds occupied in order to try and follow what's going on, that's trademark Christopher Nolan right there. Dunkirk was just phenomenal, epic, spinechilling and satisfying, I can't wait to watch it again.
Verdict: 9.7/10
I hope Chris pairs up with Johnathan for whatever he's going to do next because I'm a huge fan of his writing, my guess is that he's going to be back to do a sci-fi movie.
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