Movie Review: Dunkirk
How does one turn a major historical event -- the outcome of which is already known to many -- into an effective suspense thriller? The answer, it turns out, is to exploit the suspense inherent to the experience of several individuals involved in the event, rather than focusing too much on the big picture. Dunkirk takes one of the most agonizingly suspenseful situations of WWII -- the evacuation of the British army from Dunkirk after a staggering defeat and encirclement by the Germans in 1940 -- and turns it into one of the tightest suspense thrillers in recent memory, as well as one of the best war films of the decade.
First thing to get out in the open: this is a distinctly unusual war movie. The entire affair is virtually bloodless-- a few people get shot, a few people get blown up, a lot of people drown, but this is not Saving Private Ryan. This is an exercise in slow-burn fear, not a storm of steel and the carnage. Adrenaline only carries you so far before the body and the mind begin to suffer rather than benefit from it, and that is what a large portion of Dunkirk focuses upon. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of footsoldiers, we meet a handful of officers, two intrepid RAF fighter pilots, and three civilians on a pleasure yacht who have chosen to aid the evacuation (do a quick Wikipedia search on the real-life Dunkirk for context). The narrative covers each of these groups as they experience many of the same events at different times, often creating nerve-crushing tension where we didn’t even realize anything was happening at all.
It's hard to talk about a suspense movie without giving away spoilers, especially a movie with as many suspenseful moments as Dunkirk, since most of the best parts of the film are connected to suspenseful situations. The biggest suspense of the real-life situation, of course, comes from the question of whether or not 400,000 men will escape Dunkirk with their lives; history is the ultimate spoiler for that one, but Christopher Nolan manages to keep us in constant suspense (just like the men on that beach) by injecting smaller instances of high-octane suspense into every possible moment, no matter how small. A busted fuel gauge, the rising tide, a narrow walkway over a splintered dock... it seems that a life-or-death situation pops up every minute or so, whether it lasts a few seconds or an hour, so frequently that even when there is no immediate threat we are still in suspense because we know SOMETHING is going to happen sooner or later. To help us feel the dread and uncertainty of the large-scale situation, a recurring visual motif of impending drowning reflects the stranded soldiers' predicament: trapped at the edge of the sea, where the only victory to be had is to escape with one’s life.
The soldiers of Dunkirk go largely unnamed, and exhibit few characteristics to distinguish them as individual people. I think the idea here is to reduce everyone on the beach down to their base instinct to survive, which in turn reduces everyone’s personality to that of a caveman trying to make it one more night without being killed by a saber-toothed tiger. They have no control over their situation, although several attempt to find a way to escape when none presents itself. But this is hardly the “teamwork wins the day” fable of The Great Escape-- there is a distinct "me first" theme to all of the attempts at getting out that leads to many a tense moment as these young men gradually abandon any pretense of righteous sacrifice. There is no glory to being shot like fish in a barrel, a fate they will do pretty much anything to avoid.
It’s important to note here that the film is certainly not entirely bleak. As a moviegoer, few things are as thrilling to me as aerial combat filmed well. Dunkirk features the best dogfighting sequences since Redtails (an ok flick that is largely supported by criminally under-appreciated airborne scenes). Indeed, with apologies to Tom Hardy, one of the true stars of the film is the Supermarine Spitfire, a beast of a flying machine with arguably the most insanely macho name of any military hardware before or since. The thundering baritone growl of the aircraft's Rolls-Royce Merlin engine (name-checked by one character as "the sweetest sound you can hear out here") provides a distinctive auditory counterpoint to the blood-curdling shriek of the German dive bombers that announce impending doom as they swoop in to pick off the stranded soldiers a couple dozen at a time. The film is supported quite heavily by the sound design throughout, but the airplanes in particular stand out... especially during the climax, which I will not spoil here but holy smokes that scene alone is practically worth the price of admission.
While historical war films are typically seized by some people as nostalgic reminders of the conservative values of a bygone era, it's important to note that Dunkirk stands about as free from overt politics as from blood. While there are unmistakeable moments of classic British archetypes with the stiffest of upper lips, we are constantly reminded that the dominant attitude among 99% of the men at Dunkirk was "get me the fuck out of here." They had a job to do, it wound up a colossal failure, and now they're stuck waiting to see if they'll live to fight another day. Certainly you can infer whatever political subtext you want (some may be more obvious than others), but even taken strictly at face value this film is an incredible accomplishment: memorializing one of the bitterest experiences of Britain’s 20th century while also creating a thrilling experience at the cinema. See it big, see it loud.
~~Stray observations~~ : The early shots of the beach feature two distinct visuals that caught my attention: the four white flagpoles and the impeccable formation of ammo cans on the ground. I’m not sure what to make of these but I loved the ostentatious visual precision of them. Also, there is a shot of a burning airplane late in the film that I want to have blown up on a canvas and hung on my wall.