Dunkirk (2017)

Dunkirk

Dir: Christopher Nolan

Dunkirk is the new war epic by the wonderful Christopher Nolan. As my top 10 states, I am somewhat of a Nolan fanboy. While coming under criticism over his last two features, Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar, I still maintain he is one of, if not the best director working today. Incidentally, after two slightly divisive instalments, Dunkirk can be said a return to form for the Brit. Dunkirk follows the miraculous evacuation of over three hundred thousand troops stranded on the beach of Dunkirk in 1940. The film manoeuvres through three braids of the narrative that are divided into land, sea and air. Each strand provides a distinct view of the events while operating through three interconnected time frames, ranging from one hour, one day and one week from the beginning of the evacuation.

Dunkirk is another example of how Nolan employs formal innovation in a mainstream feature. With many war epics arguably following a formulaic pattern of the three-act structure, Nolan’s ingenuity in writing and direction meshes that structure into what can only be described as a temporal puzzle. One of Nolan’s greatest traits is the fact he respects his audience to understand and navigate through his narrative structure. Refusing to offer a plentiful of expository dialogue, Nolan maintains Lee Smith’s lucid editing style in order to provide a fresh and intense perception of the evacuation. Recently Nolan did an interview for Film4 in which he went into detail over the structure of Dunkirk. Detailing that by suspending the use of dialogue, to which there is very little, he found inspiration from the classic masters of suspense in silent and early sound cinema, noting filmmaker such as Hitchcock and Marnua. Through this, the cinematography and the score are elevated to a degree that they become the centre pieces for the entire film. While possessing strong performances, Hoytema’s exceptional camerawork and Hans Zimmer’s pulsating score are the truly remarkable cornerstones of Dunkirk. Interestingly enough, Zimmer’s score uses the ticking of a clock to ramp up the suspense in particular sequences, a formal device most memorably engaged with in Hitchcock’s bus sequence in Sabotage (1929). Rather than typically moving back and forth from the headquarters of the British Army to the soldiers stranded on the beach, Nolan choses never stray from the desaturated surroundings of Dunkirk. Hoytema’s handheld agility combined with the clinical polish of the IMAX 70mm film create such a textured world. A world where the viewer can taste the spewed oil in the ocean, touch the foamy sand between their fingers and feel the rush of air passing over the wings of the Spitfire.

Nolan has constantly been compared to the late and great Stanley Kubrick. This comes from how both directors have employed a clinical technicality to their work that labels them as ‘cold’ directors. This cold aspect to their work also generates an element of distancing toward the lead characters. Simply look through Kubrick’s magnificent catalogue, from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Clockwork Orange, many if not all of those lead characters are presented in a distant, apathetic manner. Yet Nolan has never possessed such a quality. In each and every one of his features there has been a central core of emotion with which his characters have thrived upon. And Dunkirk is no different.

Dunkirk is another exceptional piece of work adding to the already exceptional body of work in Nolan’s filmography. Presenting exquisite formal devices along with very strong performances, one of them surprisingly being Harry Styles, Dunkirk succeeds in telling a fresh and suspenseful British tale of victory in defeat. While having extraordinary large scale practical set pieces, it is the small moments that define Dunkirk as one of the timeless war classics. It is Nolan’s Paths of Glory.