REVIEW
There are few , if any , directors working today who operate on the same scale as Christopher Nolan . At his best , Nolan makes bombast feel intimate , and while some of his detractors are left cold by his work , I would argue that that is almost the point – he aims not for wonder but for awe ; he ’ s more Kubrick than he is Spielberg . The fact that Nolan has such an impressive track record is a testament to the man ’ s surety behind the camera , and nowhere is that more evident than in his latest , Dunkirk . At a trim 107 minutes , Dunkirk defies the conventional wisdom that all modern war movies must run over two hours ( it ’ s also Nolan ’ s second-shortest film , after his 70- minute debut Following ). This is a lean film , war stripped down to one hellish operation . It engages with humanity better than Interstellar does , and it ’ s a more immersive experience than Inception . Those are both films I like quite a bit , so what I guess I ’ m trying to say is : Dunkirk is something of a masterpiece .
Dunkirk has an impressively lean structure for a war film . The Nazis have surrounded British and French soldiers in France , pushing them to the beaches of the titular city , and the Allied forces have to attempt an evacuation of 400,000 men while under fire from soldiers , U-boats , and planes . With such a large expanse of land at his disposal , Nolan counter-intuitively shoots in claustrophobic tight spaces : a cockpit , a yacht , a crowded dock . At the same time , he operates on a macro , not micro , level ; many characters are unnamed through the film , and the script , also by Nolan , was only 76 pages long . Dunkirk is presented as a triptych , showing the evacuation from the air , the land , and the sea , and it is never less than riveting .
In a film with precious little dialogue or character development ( Tom Hardy , arguably the biggest-name actor in the cast , has less than ten lines and spends most of the film with his face in a mask ), Dunkirk lives and dies on its performances , which are solid across the board . There ’ s no weak link here . Fionn Whithead plays the soldier Tommy ; if Dunkirk has a lead actor , it ’ s Whitehead , and he , like Hardy , speaks very little . But Whitehead is able to easily convey Tommy ’ s desperation and determination , and to the film ’ s credit it never threatens to make him into a hero . Hardy , as the pilot Farrier , acts mostly with his eyes .
This is the second time that Nolan has covered Hardy ’ s face for almost an entire film ( after The Dark Knight Rises ), and one wonders if he takes perverse joy in masking one of our handsomest , most expressive actors , or if he just knows Hardy can sell any role with his eyes alone . I suspect it ’ s the latter . Farrier , too , could be turned into a hero character , but Hardy plays him as a man just doing his job , without crossing over into hokey lanternjawed Gary Cooper territory . Lastly , Mark Rylance plays Dawson , a civilian sailing his yacht Moonstone
DUNKIRK
across the English Channel to help with the evacuation . Rylance , one of the most watchable actors in film today , once again showcases the basic dignity and strength of character that won him an Oscar for Bridge of Spies .
Elsewhere , the cast is filled mostly with unknown actors ( along with small roles filled by Cillian Murphy and Kenneth Branagh , both excellent ), all of whom handle themselves nicely . The only potential distraction here is Harry Styles , who honestly gives an amazing performance . If I saw Dunkirk before I knew Styles was in a boy band , I ’ d be heralding the arrival of an exciting new talent . In a way I am ; I hope to see Styles in more films soon .
Dunkirk is a technical marvel as well . The score here might be Hans Zimmer ’ s finest work . The music is almost constantly present , which normally would be an annoyance , but here it adds to the relentless , at times grueling , nature of the film . There ’ s an excellent motif in Zimmer ’ s score of a ticking clock , which is nearly omnipresent ; when it finally stops , you will be able to sense a theater-wide exhalation of breath . Nolan has a crack sound team , and the diegetic sound mixes with Zimmer ’ s score with aplomb ; one compliments the other , but either could stand alone . But it ’ s cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema ( an Oscar nominee for Interstellar ) who makes the biggest impression . So much of Dunkirk is hall-of-fame gorgeous ; there are some shots , of Hardy ’ s plane gliding over the beach , that are not only the most painterly in the film , but some of the best of Nolan ’ s entire career .
Dunkirk moves from one intense scene to the next ; there are few moments of respite , and the only film I can think of that matches it in terms of sheer , nonstop tension is Gravity . But Nolan isn ’ t just interested in torturing his protagonist ; he taps into his humanistic side here , showing moments of decency and civility . Dunkirk is based not around a military triumph , but a retreat ; in small scenes like Tommy helping to bury a soldier in the sand , or of a fleet of civilian boats arriving at the beach , Nolan shows us that the triumph is on a much smaller scale . These men were able to retain their basic goodness and humanity in the face of defeat at the hands of unspeakable evil .
Nolan ’ s film is exhausting , in the best way . It feels like less of a film than an experience . He plays with temporal structure in a way meant to disorient but not confuse the viewer ; he trusts his audience , and his cast , and when those two attitudes overlap Dunkirk is nearly perfect . It ’ s antithetical to most modern war films , in that there ’ s no gore , or selfless martyrdom , but it absolutely belongs in the pantheon of modern war classics like Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down . Simply put , it doesn ’ t get much better than this . -T . Dawson
40 GAMBIT | SEPT / OCT | 2017