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‘Dunkirk’: A Grim, Heroic, Surrealistic Spectacular
by Sandra Olmsted
Using a nonlinear style where time folds back and forth on itself, Dunkirk writer/director Christopher Nolan creates a subtle surrealism that embraces cinematic language brilliantly.
He immerses the audience in the day the fate of the world and the course of WWII hung in the balance. The three key participants that Nolan focuses on are those soldiers trapped on the beach, those civilians coming to evacuate them, and the pilots defending the soldiers and boats below from the German planes and bombs.
In the opening scene, Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), a young British private, and several of his friends are exploring the seaside town of Dunkirk, when they encounter German positions. Only Tommy makes it the short distance to the beach where he meets Gibson (Aneurin Barnard), another young British soldier. Although Tommy seems to have some questions about Gibson, who is burying a friend in the sand, the two team up, determined to get themselves evacuated.
Meanwhile on the beach, soldiers await ships, which cannot come into shallow waters, standing in orderly British lines, making them easy targets for the German strafing. Spitfire pilots Farrier (Tom Hardy) and Collins (Jack Lowden) gauge their fuel carefully so they can return to England after their mission to protect the men and ships.
After a skirmish, Collins has to ditch in the sea, and Farrier, whose fuel gauge gets broken, gives up getting home and valiantly fights the German planes in spectacular dogfights, knowing his technically-advanced Spitfire cannot fall into enemy hands.
In England, the Royal Navy commandeers private fishing, transportation, and pleasure boats to evacuate the 400,000 British soldiers from Dunkirk, and Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance) cooperates without question. Rather than let a navy crew take his boat, he and his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) take her out themselves; their teenage deck hand George (Barry Keoghan) impulsively jumps on board also. On their crossing of the English Channel, they will be the audience’s eyewitnesses to ships sinking, rescues at sea, downed planes, and German attacks with tragic and courageous consequences.
On the shore, where all the stories of these characters and many others intersect, Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh) oversees the desperate evacuation of the British Army’s 400,000 soldiers and the desperation of the French soldier being left to Nazis slaughter.
Ultimately, Nolan tells each character’s story in a meaningful and satisfying way, which show the interrelation of events and actions. Nolan mesmerizingly illuminates the bravery, importance, and heroism of this seminal event of WWII in a way that makes Dunkirk as real as the D-Day Normandy Landing in Saving Private Ryan and the Battle of Guadalcanal in The Thin Red Line. While the action in Dunkirk is as intense as the battle scenes in these earlier modern tellings of WWII battles, Nolan’s suspenseful rescue and visceral battle stretch the whole 106 minutes of the film.
The music is exceptionally compelling and magnificent, and Dunkirk is the first serious multiple Oscar contenders for technical, writing, and directing released this year. The actors, despite their excellent performances, will probably be overlooked because the large ensemble cast makes harder to earn those Oscar acting nods.
Dunkirk, a Warner Bros. release, is in theaters now and really not to be missed. It is rated PG-13 for intense war experience and some language and is not recommended for young children and the squeamish.
