Film review: ‘Dunkirk’

Christopher Nolan makes another daring directorial escape from emotion|

Watching “Dunkirk,” one is struck by how sensible it is that Christopher Nolan has made a World War II film, because the last person to take himself as seriously as Mr. Nolan does was probably Hitler.

Nolan, almost single-handedly responsible for the current vogue of comic book flicks in which ultra-dour men in capes grimace at and beat on each other for two and a half hours, turns to another fitting subject, the Second World War. It would be inappropriate to smile even once amid the foggy slaughter on Dunkirk, so upper lips stay resolutely stiff.

This film has been lauded for its technical achievements and, indeed, the hyper-reality of the cinematography is notable. The issue is that such praise is more appropriately applied to virtual reality headsets than an alleged work of art. The film serves mainly to remind us of things with which Nolan remains unfamiliar: sufficient outdoor lighting and human emotion.

“Dunkirk” tenuously weaves three storylines that cover one week on the ground, one day on the sea and one hour in the air. Events begin under the thunder of never-seen German guns. Propaganda leaflets rain down with depictions of a tightening Axis noose around the beaches on Dunkirk (situated on mainland France, just across the Channel from England).

On the sands, there are three very similar looking white privates running around like prizes in a shooting gallery: Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), Alex (Harry Styles) and Gibson (Aneurin Barnard). Their names are best learned through Wikipedia, as it’s hard to make them out from the mumbles of the soldiers or the patches on their mucky coats. Nolan, in his sagacity, recognizes there is nothing more sentimental than creating a character when you can just present a face.

The boys are watched over by Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh, straining to bring Shakespearean weight to the couple dozen words he is allowed to speak). He tells one joke and thank goodness it isn’t funny enough to make anyone laugh, though his second, Colonel Winnant (James D’Arcy), manages a wince.

Through their binoculars, they see a vision of home churning across the Channel, in the form of civilian ships sent over to help evacuate the troops. Mark Rylance and Mark Rylance’s very concerned eyes play Mr. Dawson, a Weymouth boatman who brings along his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) and his friend George (Barry Keoghan) on the rescue mission. They scoop up a shivering unnamed soldier (Cillian Murphy) from an overturned ship’s hull bobbing in the water. He is less than thrilled to be motoring back to Dunkirk.

In the air, shot by an agile camera and shot at by the Luftwaffe, are Royal Air Force pilots Collins (Jack Lowden) and Farrier (Tom Hardy), the latter an into-the-sunset hero if ever there was one. Farrier clears the sky of many a Jerry fighter - but it’s impossible to say whether he cracks a laconic grin behind his goggles and oxygen mask.

The film leans on the sonic assault by composer Hans Zimmer, intent on shellshocking your eardrums with deafening metronomic sound effects ripped from 60 Minutes. All the ticking in the score really makes you aware of the passage of time. Then again, so does the Ke$ha song “TiK ToK.”

As the activities crescendo, the film turns to the famous words of Winston Churchill, who was, if nothing else, a better screenwriter than Christopher Nolan. As the prime minister’s speech is intoned - “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the hills, we shall fight at the box office, etc.” - we see images of the quiet shoreline. Empty helmets cling to the sand like barnacles, like the sticky idea that we can still bask, proudly, in the reflected light of a good war.

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