I was lucky enough to be able to see an early screening of Dunkirk thanks to a friend having an extra ticket and I am very glad that I was able to see it and it is an absolutely fantastic movie. Usually war movies do not have a big draw for me but I was intrigued about this one. While watching it my attention was completely focused on what was happening and after I figured out the interplay between the three parts of the story, I was drawn into what was happening on screen, which thinking about how little dialogue there is in the movie is an amazing feat.
Dunkirk follows three interweaving stories (or points of view) set around the evacuation of Dunkirk beach. These three stories happening over different amounts of time and although each section is chronological itself, the cuts between the different perspectives are not moving at the same pace or timeframe. There is the beach story which occurs over the course of one week and follows young soldier Tommy, played by FionnWhitehead. Tommy is trying to get evacuated from the beach where the British Soldiers have been trapped during WWII on Dunkirk beach and interacts with Gibson played by Aneurin Barnard, and Alex, played by Harry Styles. The second story occurs over the time frame of one day and follows Mr. Dawson, played by Mark Rylance; Peter, played by Tom Glynn-Carney; and George, played by Barry Keoghan. These three take their own boat to Dunkirk in an attempt to assist with the evacuation of the soldiers stranded on the beach. On their way they pluck a soldier out of the water, played by Cillian Murphey. The third story occurs over a hour and follows fighter pilots Farrier played by Tom Hardy, and Collins, played by Jack Lowden.
Dunkirk is initially a bit confusion because there is no set up to what is going on, it just jumps right into the story. I liked this but it took a moment for me to understand what the one week, one day, one hour text meant and that the different stories and points of views were not happening concurrent to each other but at different paces although they converged and certain moments. You would see a situation from the air and then later see how what they were witnessing in the sea got there or vice versa. Once I realized this it was easier to follow what was happening and the jumps between the different storylines and where the movie was in the overall timeframe of the whole story. This is really the only big thing that I found confusing and negative for the movie. Dunkirk was extremely well done and worth watching.
Dunkirk has very little dialogue and some of the little dialogue that there is, especially at the beginning of the movie, is difficult to hear. This may be due to the accents but it seemed more due to the loudness of the score and the music which drives the movie. The emotions and the main story is driving through the visuals and the scoring of each seen. Sound is uses extremely well and is the driving force of the movie. Where most stories rely on conversations between characters to explain to the audience what is happening, Dunkirk uses what is happening to the characters and the background score to show and express what is going on. Even though there is little said during the movie I feel like I missed a lot and would have liked to immediately see it again to really take in the whole experience and see all the little details that I know I missed. The cinematography is grittier and you can see all of the blemishes of the characters and how there each are dealing with difficult situations, either by making a difficult choice or by having things happen to them. There was a bit of shaking cam during the beginning that I found distracting but overall the filming worked for what was being shown.
Christopher Nolan did a fantastic job with this movie, it is visually stunning to watch and has me caring about what is going on, even thought there is no character development of any kind but yet gets me to care about the characters. I recommend going and seeing this movie. It is a fantastic dramatic film.
My Rating: 4-
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