1 Year 100 Reviews — Dunkirk

There are a couple things you should know before going into Dunkirk. 1) The main plot is divided into three intertwining narratives that all take place at different points of the rescue, and 2) there is almost no dialogue in this movie. If you go in with that understanding, you will be able to fully appreciate how incredible a movie Dunkirk is. It takes so many of the elements Christopher Nolan has learned over the past two decades of filmmaking and uses them to their fullest to tell an incredible story.
Dunkirk uses a chronologically convoluted narrative structure similar to Memento, the movie that made Nolan famous. Dunkirk follows three POVs to tell the story: the soldiers stranded on the beach, the citizen sailors who came to the rescue, and a pilot who saved tens of thousands of lives during the rescue mission. Though all three stories are told simultaneously, each covers a different period of time: the beach covers a week, the sea covers a day, and the air covers an hour. Often times the movie will retell events from a different perspective without any clear indication that it is doing so… other than the sense of déjà vu the sequences elicit. Especially toward the film’s climax, when all three timelines converge, the narrative can become a little hard to follow (sort of like with Inception’s climax). Still, it makes for some powerful moments and a thrilling climax that allows the tension of each narrative to build on one another in a way that is as impressive as it is complicated.
The actors’ performances are what really drive the movie home. I don’t know if Nolan was just reacting to the criticisms of his weak dialogue, but his script for Dunkirk is almost entirely without it. The main cast all give outstanding performances (yes, even Harry Styles does really well). Rather than relying on characters to tell us what they are thinking and feeling, the movie uses the language of cinema to put the audience in the mindset of the characters on screen. We don’t need the soldiers on the beach to talk about how terrified they are because we are right there with them.
Aside from all the elements mentioned above, the primary thing that makes Dunkirk stand out from most other war movies is that the theme of the movie focuses on the terror of war. Most war movies either glorify the soldiers, emphasize how horrifying war is, or romanticizes the events depicted. Dunkirk instead wants to show how terrifying it is to be in a life-or-death situation. There is nothing glorious or romantic about the events at Dunkirk. It was a miraculous retreat, but nonetheless the consequence of utter failure. This story is about the bravery of the conscripted citizenry for traveling across the English Channel to rescue the stranded soldiers.
I often forget that Christopher Nolan is English. But, man, is this movie English. It just goes to further prove my theory that Americans are missing out on a lot of amazing stories just because the stories don’t focus on Americans. Dunkirk’s is an amazing story I had no idea existed before this movie was made. I hope this movie’s success will help open the door to other such incredible tales that have yet to grace American audiences.
I hope my adoration of Christopher Nolan’s filmography is not clouding my judgment of Dunkirk. Aside from The Dark Knight Rises and maybe The Prestige, I have really liked the movies he has directed. But, from what I have gathered, it seems most critics share my sentiment that this movie is truly great. It may be Nolan’s best-made films, albeit maybe not his most entertaining. (That title I would award to The Dark Knight). It is a fantastic piece of film that