Why you need to actually WATCH Dunkirk + 7 questions to ask yourself post-experience

Photo by Martin Dörsch on Unsplash

I walked out that gargantuan IMAX 70mm theater asking myself, “What was Nolan trying to tell us, the audience?” Was that it? Was it just simply…

Dunkirk looked like an utter catastrophe, with up to 400,000 soldiers potentially stranded and to be killed; an aircraft fought till the bitter end, taking out the last remaining enemy aircraft; British civilian boats saved the day, bringing over 300,000 soldiers back to fight another day.

That story we could’ve gleaned from the trailer, a glance at the synopsis, or the history books. So, why did Nolan want to give us a palpable, bone-tingling re-telling of that story? For what purpose?

I’m sure this question has been answered at some point. But as I walked out, the question of ‘why Nolan created this film’ morphed into ‘what do I take away from this film’.

Cause what Nolan did, at least for me, wasn’t to tell me a new, novel story, but to bring me into one, so that I could feel it — each bomb, each bullet, each wave, each stretch of silence, each defeat — for myself.

1. What does it feel like, being stranded on a dock, knowing that a bomber will pass right above you in 10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…BAM.
2. What goes through your mind when, as a bomber passes above, everyone, including yourself, falls to the ground on the beach. Yes, you get up, but you notice an indiscriminate few who don’t, including one right next to you.
3. What can you do when, you overhear your superior saying that, at best, they expect less than 10% of you to make it out alive.
4. How should you feel when, your act of living implicitly causes the death of another.
5. What do you think when, life turns out to be a series of lucky and unlucky moments in time.
6. Why war? Why fight?
7. What if, life isn’t fair?

So why did Nolan want to film this story? I think it’s because, it’s in palpably experiencing, feeling these extreme moments — when the triumph of the human spirit shines brightest and the ugliness of human instinct drags us to its darkest depths — that we can truly answer for ourselves, “What do I believe?”

And what better time then now, in this time of chaos, of turmoil, of confusion, to re-evaluate or confirm, what it is that we believe.

Originally published at medium.com on July 23, 2017.