‘Dunkirk’ a powerful look at war that may not be for all
Helmeted soldiers huddled together as a warplane rains hellfire down from the skies.
Men turning on each other inside a rapidly sinking capsized ship.
A pilot staying in the air as long as he can to defend the land and water below him long after his fuel gauge stopped working.
These are but a few scenarios in “Dunkirk,” the excellent new World War II drama from acclaimed director Christopher Nolan (“The Prestige,” “The Dark Knight” trilogy).
Of course, other directors have sought to remind us that war is hell — Mel Gibson did it just last year in the highly effective “Hacksaw Ridge” — but the visionary Nolan brings his distinct sensibilities to that well-worn theme; “Dunkirk” is as visceral as it is artistic, a beautifully shot film that is, at times, intentionally upsetting.
The film is a fictionalized account of the Dunkirk evacuation, an early but important event in the war that saw the rescue of many thousands of Allied soldiers — a high percentage of them British — from the beaches of Dunkirk, France, as they were surrounded by Axis forces. Although the event represented a loss in the war, the British successfully spun it as a “miracle” that involved great acts of heroism.
While the film by Nolan, a Brit himself, is in part a portrait of heroism, it may be not have the wide appeal of, say, “Hacksaw Ridge” or 1998’s acclaimed “Saving Private Ryan.” Nolan is known largely for using nontraditional, often nonlinear narrative structures as he has taken viewers inside the mind of a man with faulty memory (2000’s “Memento”), within an elaborate realm of dreams (2010’s “Inception”) and to the furthest reaches of space (2014’s “Interstellar”). Here, for the first time, he is telling a tale based on a real event, but he still does it his way.
Yes, he plays with time, albeit slightly; events on the beaches of Dunkirk take place over the span of a week, events at sea over the course of a day and those in the air an hour, the three arenas eventually overlapping. It can be slightly confusing at first, but it ultimately is a satisfying storytelling device.
More notably, “Dunkirk” lacks that one central figure — a lead protagonist, if you will — around which so many narratives are built. Instead, the load shared by a number of key characters, some portrayed by well-known actors, some not.
One of the most compelling characters is Mr. Dawson, the captain of a civilian ship portrayed by Mark Rylance, an Oscar winner for 2015’s “Bridge of Spies.” Dawson represents one of many boat operators who answered Britain’s call to assist in rescuing the military men. Along the way, he picks up a shivering soldier portrayed by Cillian Murphy (“Batman Begins”) — like several “Dunkirk” characters, he’s never given a proper name — who is upset when he learns to ship is not headed back to England but toward the conflict.
Asked by a young crewmember, George (Barry Keoghan), if the man is a coward, Mr. Dawson replies, “He’s shell-shocked, George. He’s not himself. He may never be himself again.”
Rylance is quite good, as is another recognizable face — Nolan regular Tom Hardy — although as Farrier, a Royal Air Force Pilot, his face is almost always covered by the mask he wears while flying. But just being in the cockpit with him as he and a wingman try to take out as many Axis planes as they can is exhilarating.
Significant screen time also goes to Kenneth Branagh (“Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit”), as the British naval commander; newcomer Fionn Whitehead and pop-music star Harry Styles — Nolan supposedly cast the One Direction member without knowing about his singing career — as soldiers; and Tom GlynnCarney as Peter, as Mr. Dawson’s son and crewmember of his father’s boat, the Moonstone.
Nolan is the star of this show, however. He, cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema (“Interstellar”) and Hans Bjerno, the film’s director of aerial photography, provide myriad powerhouse images. The shots that comprise “Dunkirk” are a mix of expansive — the beach and glorious shots of the warplanes cutting through the sky — and claustrophobic — the bowels of ships packed with sardine-like soldiers and the cockpits of those planes.
Nolan and company shot the film in a combination of 65mm and IMAX film formats. That kind of thing can be complicated to explain, but the punchline is you should try to see “Dunkirk” on the biggest screen you can, if you’re going to see it in the the-
ater.
How many people see it in theaters will be something interesting to follow. For the reasons already stated, it doesn’t feel like a big box-office hit. It also doesn’t exactly feel like a serious contender for the best-picture Academy Award, but maybe that’s largely because it’s being released half a year before those type of films typically are. It’s easy to imagine it being nominated for a number of the technical categories for the Oscars, however.
“Dunkirk” is a technical achievement, to be sure, but also an emotional one. In less than two hours — far less time than he typically takes to tell a story — Nolan, in a manner only he could, leaves you a bit reinvested in the power of the human spirit.