Dunkirk (2017)

Dunkirk (2017)

IMDB Rating : 8.8/10 (as on 23.07.2017)

PG-13 | 1h 46min | Action, Drama, History

Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Empire and France are surrounded by the German army and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II.

Director: Christopher Nolan

Writer: Christopher Nolan

Stars: Fionn Whitehead, Damien Bonnard, Aneurin Barnard

 IMDB link Here

‘Dunkirk’ Is a Tour de Force War Movie, Both Sweeping and Intimate  

MANOHLA DARGIS  

One of the most indelible images in “Dunkirk,” Christopher Nolan’s brilliant new film, is of a British plane in flames. The movie recounts an early, harrowing campaign in World War II that took place months after Germany invaded Poland and weeks after Hitler’s forces started rolling into the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. The plane, having glided to a stop, has been defiantly set ablaze by the pilot to avoid its being captured. It’s an image of unambiguous defeat but also an emblem of resistance and a portent of the ghastly conflagrations still to come.

It’s a characteristically complex and condensed vision of war in a movie that is insistently humanizing despite its monumentality, a balance that is as much a political choice as an aesthetic one. And “Dunkirk” is big — in subject, reach, emotion and image. Mr. Nolan shot and mostly finished it on large-format film (unusual in our digital era), which allows details to emerge in great scale. Overhead shots of soldiers scattered across a beach convey an unnerving isolation — as if these were the last souls on earth, terminally alone, deserted. (Seen on a television, they would look like ants.) Film also enriches the texture of the image; it draws you to it, which is crucial given the minimalist dialogue.

The movie is based on a campaign that began in late May 1940 in the French port city of Dunkirk, where some 400,000 Allied soldiers — including more than 200,000 members of the British Expeditionary Force, the British army in Western Europe — were penned in by the Germans. The British, faced with the capture or possible annihilation of their troops, initiated a seemingly impossible rescue. Named Operation Dynamo, this mission has assumed near-mythic status in British history and been revisited in books and onscreen; it shows up in “Mrs. Miniver,” a 1942 Hollywood weepie about British pain and perseverance in the war meant to encourage American support for the Allies.

War movies tend to play out along familiar lines, including lump-in-the throat home-front tales like “Mrs. Miniver.” “Dunkirk” takes place in battle, but it, too, is a story of suffering and survival. Mr. Nolan largely avoids the bigger historical picture (among other things, the reason these men are fighting is a given) as well as the strategizing on the front and in London, where the new prime minister, Winston Churchill, was facing the horrifying possibility of diminished military muscle. Churchill is heard from, in a fashion, but never seen. Mr. Nolan instead narrows in on a handful of men who are scrambling and white-knuckling their way into history on the sea, in the air and on the ground.

Mr. Nolan’s elastic approach to narrative works beautifully in “Dunkirk,” which oscillates among its three sections, each largely taking place in distinct locations in different time frames. The events on the beach — called the Mole for the breakwater that’s used as a dock — unfold during one week. The events on the sea occur in one day, while the air scenes transpire in an hour. The locations and the time periods are announced onscreen. At first the dividing lines aren’t always obvious as Mr. Nolan cuts from daytime scenes on the ground to those in the sea and in the air, a slight merging of space and especially of time that underlines the enormity of a fight seemingly without end.

Once Mr. Nolan begins switching between day and night, the lines dividing the three narrative segments mostly sharpen. Even as each section — with its individual dramas and perils — comes closer into view, Mr. Nolan keeps them all in dynamic play with one another. Some of this he achieves with stark visual echoes, as when water rushing into a downed Spitfire engulfs the pilot and elsewhere a soldier nearly drowns. (Tom Hardy plays the most critically important pilot, while a sympathetic Jack Lowden takes on a critical support role.) At one point, Mr. Nolan pulls the three narrative strands tightly together, creating a tremendous, enveloping sense of bone-deep dread.

“Dunkirk” is a World War II movie, one told through soldiers, their lived and near-death experiences and their bodies under siege. Names are generally irrelevant here; on the beach — and in the sea and air — what counts are rank, unit, skill and the operation, although more important is survival, making it through another attack and somehow avoiding exploding bombs. Mr. Nolan’s emphasis on the visceral reality of Dunkirk leaves much unsaid; even in some opening explanatory text, the enemy isn’t identified as Nazi Germany. The soldiers, of course, know exactly who they are fighting and perhaps even why, but in the field the enemy is finally the unnamed stranger trying to kill them.

The soldier who scrambles over the gate and onto the beach is called Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) in the credits, but I don’t remember hearing or reading his name. Mostly, I just thought of him as Our Boy, less because of his youth than because of the vulnerability communicated through Mr. Whitehead’s slight figure and tangible physical performance, his small and large gestures and moves: the darting, panicked eyes; the nervous, abrupt gestures; the hunched shoulders. In time, Tommy is joined by other soldiers waiting and running and ducking on the beach, the most important played by the equally fine Aneurin Barnard and the singer Harry Styles.

Mr. Nolan’s unyielding emphasis on the soldiers — and on war as it is experienced rather than on how it is strategized — blurs history even as it brings the present and its wars startlingly into view. “Dunkirk” is a tour de force of cinematic craft and technique, but one that is unambiguously in the service of a sober, sincere, profoundly moral story that closes the distance between yesterday’s fights and today’s. Mr. Nolan closes that distance cinematically with visual sweep and emotional intimacy, with images of warfare and huddled, frightened survivors that together with Hans Zimmer’s score reverberate through your body. By the time that plane is burning — and a young man is looking searchingly into the future — you are reminded that the fight against fascism continues.

 Read full review at New York Times

An incredibly heartfelt masterpiece  

Deborah Cornelious  

Much has been said about Christopher Nolan’s diverse and intense body of work, from The Prestige to the Dark Knight Trilogy right up to Insterstellar. But words fall short to accurately do justice to his latest accomplishment. With Dunkirk, Nolan has paved the way for new meaning to the war genre which for most is synonymous with gruelling combat, blood, gore and politics. In lieu of the predictable, the filmmaker embraces a path-breaking narrative that systematically and flawlessly injects the dismay and horror of war right into his audience’s veins. Shot in the IMAX format (65 mm and 65 mm large format) Dunkirkrelays the evacuation of the Allied troupes from the French territory through different perspectives: the air (Spitfire aircraft), water (boats and ships) and land (the beach).

Nolan’s spectacle is equally aided with a stellar soundtrack from his frequent collaborator Hanz Zimmer. The film’s music, certainly a worthy protagonist, ebbs and flows with onscreen action. The score, often palpitating like a hammering heartbeat reaches a crescendo amplifying tense situations. Nolan uses the frequent change in perspectives and Zimmer’s soundtrack to keep his viewers on the edge of their seat, never fully letting them fall.

Dunkirk invests in smaller sub-plots that individually elicit compassion and empathy. For instance, at one moment you’re fretting about Farrier’s malfunctioning fuel gauge while he’s in the air hoping he won’t crash; at another your heart aches at the antagonism between British and French soldiers, both fighting the same war; and then you’re feeling the excruciating ill-effects shell shock can have on an unnamed soldier (Cillian Murphy). And to reiterate, it’s Zimmer’s music that helps amplify these moments creating an anxious atmosphere. The actors, right from veteran Rylance to Hardy and debutant Harry Styles (also ex-One Direction band member) are top-notch, bringing their character’s steely determination and sincerity to the fore.

The film is about history, albeit a dramatic one. We already know what happened. But Nolan’s film, barely short of being a documentary of the 1940 evacuation, punctuates the momentary defeat of the Allied forces. In doing so, he’s immortalised a fleeting glimpse of the perseverance of the human spirit. The end result is an aural and most importantly, an incredibly heartfelt masterpiece.

Read full review at The Hindu

Movie Rating ★★★★✬  

 This Christopher Nolan war drama is taut, tense and relentless

Shalini Langer  

Dunkirk begins by telling you in three short lines what happened in this little-known story about World War II. Soon after the War had started, the British and French troops were trapped in this French sea town as the Germans circled in. The British and French troops waited “for deliverance”. “For a miracle”.

Then, nothing in this taut, tense, relentless film, plays like a miracle, or feels like deliverance. War seldom does, and Christopher Nolan, the man who has made superheroes darker, dreams loopier and space vaster, isn’t letting you forget that. There are few heroes in Dunkirk, and no battles. The actual act of heroism by the men and women who rushed in with their small boats from across the English Channel to rescue the forces is almost a cipher, though it is this that led to this story be known as the “Miracle of Dunkirk”.

No, Nolan is telling you about defeat, the blood, sweat and tears of it; how it settles into your bones, sets in your face, moves your clawing fingers, hardens your scared heart. He is telling it from the seas, skies and land, and if you are catching it in IMAX, there is just no looking away, from any angle as Nolan goes over, under, in and out, about the men.

The writer-director, who loves playing with time, again tells the story of that week in a non-linear sequence. It’s an unnecessary tool here, but it allows him to simultaneously focus on three things that were happening in that May-June 1940 rescue effort, as the world still nudged itself awake to Hitler’s possibilities. There are the soldiers in Dunkirk, pushed to a narrow stretch of beach half covered in sea foam; there is the Royal Air Force told to largely stay away; and there are the men in small boats called for help by the desperate British government as bigger ships couldn’t pick up the men from the beach.

Nolan has got great actors essaying each of those roles. The desperation with which they grab a stretcher with a dying soldier and run to a medical ship, in a chance to get off the beach, is heartbreaking. The plight of the men who knew death was so near, nearer than the home that lay just 30 miles away — “close enough to almost see it” – is told through largely these two men, who remain virtually wordless, and nameless. And later by Harry Styles.

The air chapter has Tom Hardy and two other pilots fending off the German bombers, who are targeting any big ship trying to make it to the beach. Hardy is covered in his mask almost all through the film, but his eyes and those firm fingers tell a story.

On the sea, the third chapter, we meet Mark Rylance (having quite a run these days), his son and his deck hand, who are responding to the British government’s call to help and rushing off to Dunkirk in their yacht. It’s here that Nolan allows himself some talk, about fighting, about defeat, about heroism, about “old men who dictate wars” and “send young children to fight them”. And about airplanes, a lot of them. It’s not always convincing.

Dunkirk does hold no promise of heroes you can cheer or mourn for, or of people whom we know beyond what they did that day. There are no photos tucked in wallets, no letters to post, no messages to deliver. Death comes quickly, without ceremony; boats sink fast, with just a whoosh as warning; and planes go down slowly, like a bird in agony. But the faces you will remember, the faces of men holding their toast and jam, staring at death, and looking uncomprehendingly at hope.

It’s after Dunkirk that Winston Churchill gave his famous speech about “fighting them on the beaches…”, “never surrendering”, and hoping for the New World to come to the rescue of the Old. As desperate men in boats again lap against Europe’s shores, that prayer sounds as bleak as it did that day.

Read full review at Indian Express

Chris Nolan's Best Movie Since 'The Dark Knight'

Scott Mendelson

Nolan is arguably WB’s golden boy at the moment (he has helmed both their two biggest domestic earners and the largest global hit of theirs that doesn’t involve Batman, J.K. Rowling or Middle Earth), but this was arguably a “one for me” picture for the esteemed British filmmaker. There was a time not so long ago when one big, acclaimed adult-skewing film could stand out among a summer of fantastical blockbuster offerings and go the distance.

Chris Nolan’s immersive and visually stunning World War II drama is a towering achievement in its intended 70mm/IMAX format. It tells a very traditional war story in an essentially new way, eschewing character melodrama and outside context to place you, the viewer, right in the thick of it. Like The Walk or Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, it is a one-of-a-kind cinematic experience in its intended format. It’s not quite “virtual reality without the headset,” but it's close. See it in an IMAX auditorium if you can, but do make a point to see it in a movie theater.

There are no subplots, no cutaways away from the war zone, and little in the way of conventional character development. The vast majority of the film was shot with IMAX film cameras, a notoriously noisy piece of filmmaking equipment which requires a greater burden on ADR for dialogue. But this is almost a silent picture in terms of dialogue, one free of the monologues or the emotional and thematic exposition that has occasionally been a crutch for the iconic filmmaker. The story is told through visuals, rendered with glorious IMAX images for an intimate and harrowing survival story. In essence, the film is one 107-minute action scene.

Chris Nolan and Emma Thomas aren’t interested in the broader scope or (until the end) implications of the story. He has made a “you are there” motion picture which does its best to approximate the moment-to-moment experience of being in this particular incident in this specific war. That includes a reliance on long, fluid and often very wide takes. The aerial dog fights are stunning both in their scope and their simplicity, while the moments at sea are narrowly focused and surprisingly poignant. It is a remarkable piece of big-budget moviemaking, one that justifies yet another high-toned World War II picture. The story may not be new, but this film feels wholly original.

Oddly enough, the lack of R-rated carnage gives the movie an added kick, as the bloodless death and arbitrary violence is more profoundly random and pointless sans Hacksaw Ridge­-level gore. Yes, it becomes slightly repetitious during the third act, since the time gimmick means we do see a few scenes repeated multiple times. And, yeah, the dialogue is (yet again) occasionally muffled and hard to discern, but that’s less of an issue than Interstellar since very little of the dialogue is remotely essential. However, the towering visuals (Hoyte Van Hoytema) and brutal sound mix (kudos to Hans Zimmer and Richard King among many others) more-than-compensate for these minor deficiencies.

Dunkirk makes a case for the theatrical experience in an era when those still championing the multiplex must yell that much louder. It is a powerful meditation on mere survival in a war zone as a triumph, and about how we act during a time of seeming defeat providing the key to eventual victory. The picture ends on a note of measured optimism, acutely aware of both the past (it wasn’t always certain that the Allies would win the war) and the present (our current political madness). This is just remarkable, superbly-crafted major studio multiplex entertainment, and it damn well deserves to be seen on a big screen.

 Read full review at Forbes

Movie Rating ★★★★★

Utterly exhausting, totally absorbing and deeply emotional, Christopher Nolan's brilliant film of Dunkirk's evacuation is simply unmissable

MATTHEW BOND

By and large, Christopher Nolan doesn’t make short films. His last three – Interstellar, The Dark Knight Rises and Inception – average a distinctly heavyweight two hours 40 minutes each. So the first big surprise served up by Dunkirk, Nolan’s first foray into historical film-making, is that it’s barely an hour and three-quarters long.

Yes, that great turning point of the Second World War, one of the most remarkable evacuations in military history, is served up in little more than 100 minutes. But it’s quite possibly the best 100 minutes he’s ever made.

It doesn’t hang about. There’s very little dialogue (that’s the second big surprise) and while poor John Mills and his retreating platoon seemed to take most of Leslie Norman’s iconic 1959 film just to get to Dunkirk, here Fionn Whitehead’s panicking young infantryman, Tommy – so named, of course, because he represents any of the tens of thousands of trapped British soldiers – is on the beach in barely a minute.

A deadly blast of machine-gun fire from unseen Germans, a scramble over a garden wall, a blockade of sandbags manned by the defiant French, and he’s there. And so are we: in his unstinting effort to create an ‘immersive reality’, Nolan shot much of the action on the actual Dunkirk beach.

As we already know – but Nolan is about to do a viscerally brilliant job of reminding us – that was easier said than done. Time and again, hopes are raised only to be cruelly dashed, with many of the soldiers making multiple escape attempts before they reached safety. Many, of course, would never make it home at all.

Initially, it seems Nolan, who supplies his own pared-down screenplay as well as directing, has adopted a very simple structure, dividing his story into three familiar strands: land, sea and air.

The latter is a surprise, given the infamous lack of air cover that left the stranded troops as sitting targets for the Luftwaffe dive-bombers. ‘Where’s the bloody RAF?’ asks one of the soldiers queuing on Dunkirk’s famous ‘mole’ – a narrow, rickety pier extending into the sea – a question that armchair historians have been asking ever since.

But in Nolan’s film, and in a conspicuous departure from Norman’s earlier version, the RAF are there; not in great numbers, nor having the biggest impact, but definitely there and doing their heroic best.

Indeed, Nolan regular Tom Hardy – who, given the comical audibility problems he had when playing the masked villain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, is brave to don the iconic face mask of a Spitfire pilot – provides the stirring climax of this utterly exhausting, totally absorbing but wisely restrained picture.

It’s the little suffixes attached to his chapter headings that quietly give the first clue to Nolan’s cinematic ambitions. The ‘land’ story – represented by the beach and the mole – lasts ‘one week’; the sea – its story about one of the many privately owned ‘little ships’ that sailed to the rescue – spans ‘one day’; and the air… just ‘one hour’.

Nolan is famous for his non-linear storytelling and playing with time, but watching him bring those three strands together into a seamless whole is wonderful, albeit in a potentially confusing way until you’ve worked out what he’s doing.

So while Hoyte von Hoytema’s stunning cinematography (he shot Interstellar too), Hans Zimmer’s score, and the sound design (you’ve never heard a dive-bombing Stuka scream like this) deserve both the plaudits and, possibly, nominations coming their way, I do hope the editing of Lee Smith – another regular Nolan collaborator – is not forgotten. It raises the film to another level. Nevertheless, there are a few potential problems.

For British audiences, this is a familiar story and the same could be said of the performances of Nolan’s better-known leading actors, with Kenneth Branagh bringing quiet dignity and courage to his naval commander on the mole, Hardy providing wonderful British understatement and Mark Rylance, playing the small-ship skipper, doing that wonderfully gentle, country-accented English everyman he does so well. It’s hardly reinventing the dramatic wheel but it works beautifully.

Then there’s the fact that the three young dark-haired actors Nolan has chosen to play the main characters – newcomer Whitehead, Aneurin Barnard and One Direction’s Harry Styles (don’t worry, he’s perfectly good) all look quite similar, particularly in the confusing heat of battle.

But in the end, the power of the underlying story and its meticulous re-creation on the big screen completely won me over, as Nolan and his outstanding team deliver scene after scene of heroism, desperation, or that base human instinct for survival, and one scene – and there had to be one – that simply brings a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye.

Read full review at  Daily Mail