Dunkirk — Nolan’s Answer to his Critics

Dunkirk is going to go down as one of the greatest war films of all time, right up there with Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket. I could write on and on about how the film is almost entirely shot in IMAX, how he pulled off such tension without any real plot structure, how everything is real and there is no CGI or how Nolan uses an unrelenting score and sound design without even a second of silence to build up momentum like no one else can, but you’ll read all about that in the coming days from everyone else.
What I wanna write about is what I felt personally after watching the film. For me personally, as one of the biggest Nolan fan’s out there, as someone who usually travels nearly 2000 kilometers to the biggest IMAX theater in the country just to watch his film, Dunkirk was special for a whole other reason, Dunkirk to me, is Nolan answering all his critics. Yes, although he is one of the most famous directors in the world right now and universally respected, he does have his fair share of critics and I felt, with Dunkirk, Nolan was finally answering them in the best way possible, through his work. Some of the most common critiques you hear of Nolan’s films are:
1. Nolan films are filled with expositional dialogue: In Dunkirk, leave exposition, there are barely any dialogues at all, characters don’t speak much, the whole film has maybe 30 dialogues. After all if you’re stuck in a beach with bombs falling around you, you don’t really get time to speak do you? And yet, exposition is so very well handled that at no point do you feel lost, in fact at most points you as the audience have more information than the characters. Figure that eh?
2. Nolan relies too much of technical gimmicks: In Dunkirk, there is no rotating hallway, there is no five dimensional bedroom, there is no truck flipping over in the middle of a street, there is not one sequence in the film that would make you feel like ‘that was impossible to shoot’. All the action feels like something that can happen in real life, yet Nolan makes you wonder in awe as to how he must have shot it the way he did. You can throw around as much money as you want into the set pieces but you still won’t be able to replicate how visceral his action looks.
3. Nolan’s characters are too dramatic: In Dunkirk, there is no father/son/daughter bonding sequence, there are no sad flashbacks, no revealing backstory, no introductions, heck, we don’t even know the name of a single character and yet you feel for each and every one of them, you care for them and hope against hope that they make it out alive. Now how do you create such relatable characters without even a name or a story? Well, no one knows except Nolan.
4. Nolan’s films are all high concept science mumbo jumbo: There is no time travel, no dream within a dream, no tesseract, nothing fancy, but then again, with a simple twist in his storytelling, he makes sure that you are on the edge of your seat throughout. How he achieves that is a storytelling masterclass in itself.
5. Nolan film’s are too complicated and convoluted that you can’t keep up: Dunkirk takes place in just three locations: the sky, the sea, the beach. That’s it. The whole film has about 10–15 scenes in total, that’s it. It’s not a blink and you miss the plot kind of film, but then again, the stakes are so high and the direction so on point that every blink of yours will be calculated and thought out. How does he do that? Only he knows. I could go on and on, but I guess you get the point.
Dunkirk is Nolan stripping himself naked to his bare essentials and showing us that he can still create an absolute masterpiece. This is the minimalist Nolan the world has forgotten, reminding everyone that, he is still the master at using any and all devices available to him to create something astonishing. Like all Nolan films, I can’t yet appreciate its full splendor for it warrants multiple rewatches. But I can easily say Dunkirk is one of Nolan’s best. I haven’t had such a riveting experience in theater since Interstellar. My senses has never seen such scale since.
Thank you Nolan for making this film. Every film of yours turns into a textbook for mere mortals like us, but with this, you’ve given us a weapon too, to fight those too uptight and ignorant to appreciate your greatness. Dunkirk will go down in history. And along with it so will your mastery.
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