Dunkirk is a victory for technical filmmaking
When 400,000+ film fans couldn’t get a good dramatic blockbuster, Dunkirk came to them
The acclaimed Chistopher Nolan finally takes on the challenge of a massive war movie with the story of Dunkirk. Hundreds of thousands of allied soldiers are trapped at the beaches of France with enemy forces picking them off one by one. With no hope for victory, there is only survival.
In two surprisingly short hours we experience the miracle of Dunkirk from the ground. And from the sea. And from the sky. In a visually enchanting drama that will be remembered alongside the likes of Schindler’s List. Filled with emotion and wonder, Dunkirk might be Nolan’s best work yet.
On the technical aspects of film-making there is so much that can be said, and I’m not nearly qualified to analyze it all. There were however a few marvels in particular that caught my eye. Mainly the movement of the masses. Working with a large group of soldiers, making them move in such a way that they separately portray one emotion together is done in a masterful way I believe to be derived from Akira Kurosawa's methods.
The advantage of this method being that you don’t need a character and you don’t need a plot to get the atmosphere across, which is exactly what this film needs. The story needs to come across clearly with as little elements as possible. Nolan doesn’t want us to watch some soldiers experience this event, he wants us to experience it for ourselves. This means getting creative with storytelling.
Note that there is not a lot of dialogue in this film, and the conversations that do take place are very short-lived. The characters speak only when necessary to justify their behavior, which is not often seeing that the main characters are far from fleshed out.
Instead Nolan cuts the crap and leaves it on the cutting room floor as he cuts to the chase. This also explains the surprisingly short run-time of 1 hour 45 minutes, enough to show the conflict at hand with no time to spare. The opening scene is already a perfect example of this. A simple flyer (as seen in the trailers) marked “WE SURROUND YOU” is all that is needed to introduce the initial conflict, as well as the formal antagonist.
The reason I say ‘formal’ antagonist because the real conflict is not man vs man, it’s man vs nature. This is not a battle against the Germans, it’s a battle for survival.
Now take that primal conflict of survival, and take away all sense of characters and stories. What’s left is one damn interesting piece of film-making. Without dialogue the pressing urge to survive is portrayed in other ways, ways like the Kurosawa method of directing crowds. Color plays an important role as well, as the more hopeful characters are put in lighter, warmer colors, in contrast to the shades of blue and grey.
And while I know this article is running on long, I cannot go without mentioning the music. Hans Zimmer is a genius on his own, but his work and this film as a package deal is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. The use of silence complements the lack of spoken words, and the reoccurring ticking creates the feeling of desperation like the visuals could never accomplish. The mutual respect and admiration between Christopher Nolan and Hans Zimmer is evident from the way the visuals and the audio go together. One cannot exist without the other, yet both are genius on their own.
In other words, this flick is one to look out for. The way of storytelling is incredibly innovative, telling a story in anything but words by using so many techniques I hope to pick up on when I rewatch it, because I will rewatch it. It is one of the greatest exhibits of technical film-making that can still exude such raw emotion, and certainly one of the best films of the year.
