DUNKIRK REVIEW

*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

While Dunkirk is classed as a 'war film', its tone and style are similar to that of a high-octane thriller. This is director/writer Christopher Nolan's most serious film to date and, despite its July release date, will surely be remembered once the Academy Awards roll around next year. Last year, Mel Gibson released Hacksaw Ridge which was a war film based on a soldier who refused to kill or even hold a gun. It was a huge success and received four nominations and won two including Best Film Editing and Best Achievement in Sound Mixing. Because Dunkirk fully captures the horrors of World War II through Nolan's unique vision, I can't imagine it walking away empty handed at the Academy Awards next year.

World War II was fought primarily in three places, on land, in the air and at sea. Dunkirk takes a similar approach, choosing to tell three different stories from each of these distinct point of views. On the beach, we follow a young soldier, Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), as he struggles to survive and get home. In the air, a pilot, Farrier (Tom Hardy), focuses on shooting enemy planes down to try and stop them from bombing ships that are taking the soldiers home. At sea, a sailor, Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance), takes his boat to try and pick up soldiers from Dunkirk. Meanwhile, Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh) is on the pier to make sure the soldiers are evacuated via the ships safely. This is all presented in a non-linear narrative which leads to an emotional conclusion.

I can't think of a better person to direct and write this other than Nolan. In the past, he has proven himself to be a master at both directing and writing with films such as Memento, Inception and The Dark Knight proving to be huge successes, both at the box office and with critics and audiences alike. His previous film, Interstellar, was a science-fiction masterpiece with stunning visual effects and an thought-provoking narrative at the centre. Of course, because of all this, there was a lot of pressure for Nolan to create a war film that's recreats WWII effectively. Fortunately, he has succeeded. I think that this is the best war film since Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. Unlike the aforementioned film, Dunkirk has very little gore. Most of the shock factor comes from the bomb explosions and the reactions from the soldier's faces. Seeing them struggling to survive is heartbreaking as we know not everyone survive. 

Nolan has said that the two films he studied before making Dunkirk were the 1953 drama, Wages of Fear, and the 1994 thriller, Speed. Having seen the latter film, I can see the similarities. Like Speed, Dunkirk is fast paced and involves the lives of innocent people being at risk. Despite the characters being underdeveloped, we still feel for them and want them to survive, especially Whitehead's Tommy, who is a 19 year old soldier who wants to get home but this doesn't stop him from helping others. Most directors would've chosen an older and more experienced actor for this role, however, Nolan chose Whitehead as he was the same age as the soldier he plays in the film. I think this was a good decision as he gives an impressive performance in his debut film. Tommy is brave and smart and someone we hope will make it back home. Alongside him, former member of boyband One Direction, Harry Styles gives a solid performance as Alex. When I first heard that Styles had been cast in this film, I was annoyed as I knew this would mean a lot of his fans, who are mainly young girls, will see it purely for him and will take the focus away from the film itself. His fans may be disappointed to learn that this isn't Styles' film, he is mainly one of thousands of soldiers that feature in this film.

Speaking of performances, apart from Whitehead, there's no stand-out. However, there's not a bad performance to be found. Dunkirk features a lot of well-known names including Harry Styles, Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh and Cillian Murphy to name a few. Hardy gives an understated performance as the pilot determined to shoot the enemy planes down. Rylance gives a great performance as Mr. Dawson as the sailor who, along with his two teenage sons, performs a selfless act by rescuing many soldiers who are stranded at sea. He soon picks up Murphy's character who is simply credited as 'Shivering Soldier'. Murphy is effective in this role as we can clearly see how much the war has had an impact on him and when he finds out that Mr. Dawson is heading towards Dunkirk, where he's just escaped from, he panics as he worries that they'll all die out there. Director Nolan knows how to get the best out of every actor and this clearly shows in Dunkirk. I don't think that there'll be any Best Actor nominations at the Academy Awards as there's no lead performance. 

I've seen a few comments criticising the lack of female characters that feature in Dunkirk. The only females seen in this film are nurses and this shouldn't be a criticsm because, at the time when this film took place in 1950, women were seen as mothers and nurses and nothing more than that. They would stay at home to look after the children and the majority of them didn't even have jobs. It's not bad writing as this is literally what society was like 77 years ago. 

Although I didn't see this in IMAX, it still had a major impact on me. The sound of the bomb explosions and gunfire were extremely loud and lead to many jump scares. A soldier could be walking down a street and, all of sudden, gun fire would start out of nowhere. The sound was incredibly effective as I felt like I was in the middle of the war and could feel the soldier's fear. Dunkirk is definitely not for the faint-hearted.

Nolan filmed this in its titular location in France. Other filmmakers would've shot in other locations to cut the costs but because Nolan didn't want to cut corners, he chose to film in the same location where the World War II events took place. In this sense, the film seems determined to be as historically accurate as possible and Nolan has succeeded.

What I liked most about Nolan's approach to this film is his lack of computer-generated imagery. While CGI isn't necessarily bad, it can look artificial at times. Nolan chose to use practical effects which meant that all the explosions that featured in the film actually happened which mean that the reactions on the actors' faces are genuine looks of horror. 

Hans Zimmer has frequently collaborated with Nolan and his scores for The Dark Knight, Inception and Interstellar are all stand-outs. His score for Dunkirk is just as intense and is constructed around the ticking of a clock, which happened to be Nolan's pocket watch. Zimmer proves once more why he's one of the greatest composers.

Nolan is known for releasing films that run at over two hours. However, Dunkirk is Nolan's shortest film since his debut, Following, in 1998. His 2002 thriller, Insomnia, was his last film to run at under two hours. Dunkirk has a runtime of 106 minutes. Nolan has said that he wanted the film to be as intense an experience as possible and therefore as lean and as stripped down and short an experience as possible. When it was announced that he would be directing a film based on WWII, a lot of people expected a big, historical epic that ran at three hours long. Nolan revealed that his screenplay was only 76 pages due to the small amount of dialogue in the film. He also said that he 'didn't want the theatrics of people telling the audience why you should care about them'. He also 'wanted them to care just because of the physical situation that they were under'. Fortunately, with that, Nolan has succeeded.

Dunkirk is an emotionally satisfying spectacle and is delivered by Christopher Nolan, a writer and director who is full command of his craft. It's also brought to life by an ensemble cast who all honour this fact-based story. It deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible and is the kind of film that should be taught in history classes, to give the younger generation an idea of what the world was like over 70 years ago.

9/10