The Best of British Cinema: Dunkirk (2017)
Christopher Nolan’s disorienting war film evokes sweaty brows and white knuckles
Yes, I’m really writing about Christopher Nolan again. I’ll run out of steam eventually, I promise.
Dunkirk is one of Christopher Nolan’s few underrated works. Of course, it’s difficult to really call any Nolan film underrated, as he is arguably the most famous filmmaker currently living, but in comparison to the neverending praise for most of his other work, Dunkirk is often left alone. It isn’t featured in the same conversations as Interstellar or The Dark Knight. In fact, perhaps because it is a Nolan film, it is left out of cinematic conversation almost entirely as viewers maintain focus on his other works.
This is most likely because it represents the beginning of Nolan’s foray into much more challenging, borderline experimental, works. Dunkirk is intentionally alienating and off-putting, forcing its audience to alter how they are approaching it as a film. It can be viewed passively, yes, but it demands interaction with its broader spectacle as opposed to with its characters. There aren’t really any characters in Dunkirk. There are people, but characters have next to no definition. Usually, this would be a major flaw. But Nolan intentionally pushes character out of his film in order…
