Dunkirk

Dir: Christopher Nolan

2017

*****

I’m not sure the classic war film will ever be the same again. Don’t get me wrong, in my opinion Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds remains the genre’s radical but mainstream game changer of recent years but hopefully people will now see that Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan is not the greatest war film of all time and that it was never even close. Many have suggested that Dunkirk is ‘the’ greatest war film of all time, but you’d have to break down the genre into categories for me to agree. There are many different sides to war, you have the battle films that concentrate more on military manoeuvres and sacrifice, the ‘epic’ with a cast of the hottest actors of the day - my favourite being Richard Attenborough’s classic A Bridge Too Far – and you have the prisoner of war movie, some that incorporate battle, escape and espionage like John Sturges’ The Great Escape, or the ones that explore the relationship between the captor and those captive, the best being Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence in my opinion. It’s easy to declare either A Bridge Too Far, The Great Escape or Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence as ‘the’ greatest war film of all time, but they only show certain aspects of war. A good war film is an anti-war film, so by that definition Andrei Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood is a strong contender. It’s fair to say that British and American Second World War films often dominate the debate, but Vietnam movies among some of the greatest films ever made. Many would argue that Francis Ford Coppola is the greatest, but as much as I love it, I would argue that the war is merely a backdrop of what the core story is about. Samuel Maoz’s brilliant Lebanon looks at war from a very different and precise viewpoint – literally – as the film is shot from the point of view of a tank driver. It’s a very modern and often overlooked masterpiece within the genre. Sometimes war is so ridiculous and detached from real life, that only a comedy can show it up for what it is and there is no better war comedy than Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H. Billy Wilder’s Stalag 17 also explores humor within the absurdity of war and Jean Renoir’s The Grand Illusion is probably the best essay on the folly of war ever produced. Sun Tzu wrote the profound ‘Art of War; centuries ago but it was directors such as Michael Cimino and Terrance Malick who brough art to the genre with The Deer Hunter and The Thin Red Line. The Thin Red Line is more looks than substance in my opinion but I regard The Deer Hunter as being one of the greatest films ever made. Without wanting to go against the grain, I would have to say Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot is the most suspenseful and successful in getting across the futility of battle and is a modern masterpiece. Stanley Kubrick has made two of the greatest war films ever made, Paths of Glory is a stunning look at world war one, the horror of the trenches and stupidity of the generals but I could watch Full Metal Jacket all day long, indeed, it is probably the war film I have re-watched the most times. I think at the end of the day you have to separate war films into two different categories: Before the First World War and after and including the First World War. Then, you need to separate the films made of the First World War and thereon into two categories again; stories seen from a military view point and stories seen from a civilian viewpoint. For me, the greatest war film of all time is Come and See by Elem Klimov. It’s a chilling look at the reality and horror that men are capable of. Come and See is the greatest but this is from a civilian viewpoint. I have thought long and hard with regards to what the greatest or at least, what my favourite, and what I think the most successful military conflict war film is in terms of meeting its objective and measure of its impact is and have decided, with all honesty, that it has to be 2017’s Dunkirk. It is phenomenal in that it re-writes the rule book while also adhering to all of the important dos and don’ts of the genre. It’s art, it’s realism, it’s factual, it covers both fear and bravery, the fight and the fight for survival. It’s not all about the ‘no guts, no glory’ cliché that many a propaganda film has rammed down the throat, history be butchered. Sometimes directors can forget that a picture can paint a thousand words, Spielberg knows but squirts the paint down the viewer’s eye socket, Nolan sits back, observes, listens, lives and then paints with quiet determination and subtle panache. Of all of his action movies, you’d expect his big war movie to match the lot but not so, while the film of course full of action, and is constant, it merely drives the film to its final conclusion, builds the drama, without taking over or becoming something just for the sake of it. It is certainly never gratuitous, which I thought Saving Private Ryan was. There is very little dialogue and not one German solder is seen throughout the entire movie. The film itself is only 1 Hour and 46 mins, almost half the time of most films considered classic war films and yet it incorporates nearly every element covered by them. It shows the bravery, the will to survive and the need to protect, the hardship, people pushed to the limits and the best and worst they can be under those circumstances and without judgment. Dunkirk was one of many unique circumstances that changed the course of the war. A bridge wasn’t felled, a high-ranking officer wasn’t captured and nor was a piece of land gained, better than that, solders were saved but it was looked upon by many as a failure. The Brits lost ground, were trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk, a stone’s throw from home but far from safety. The battle for Britain would be unavoidable, the men wanted to survive and get home but thought that the public would hate them. They also knew that if they did get home, the battle would be far from over. Their return was far from failure, the effort by the air force, navy and from the public saw the growth of a spirit of resistance that eventually won the war. As Nolan himself put it: "This is an essential moment in the history of the Second World War. If this evacuation had not been a success, Great Britain would have been obliged to capitulate. And the whole world would have been lost, or would have known a different fate: the Germans would undoubtedly have conquered Europe, the US would not have returned to war. It is a true point of rupture in war and in history of the world. A decisive moment. And the success of the evacuation allowed Churchill to impose the idea of a moral victory, which allowed him to galvanize his troops like civilians and to impose a spirit of resistance while the logic of this sequence should have been that of surrender. Militarily it is a defeat; on the human plane it is a colossal victory." The film itself is separated into three interweaving threads, seen from different viewpoints; ‘The mole’ takes place on the beach at Dunkirk where 300,000 soldiers were stranded, surrounded by the German troops, waiting to be either rescued or picked off, whichever came first; ‘The Sea’ sees fishermen and those with private pleasure boats set off from the southern coast across the channel to help save the stranded soldiers while Navy commanders wait at the other end, cramming their men into whatever ship that comes available; ‘The Air’ features spitfire piolets fighting off the incoming Luftwaffe – many of the troops were angry with the airforce as they were largely unseen but they hadn’t realised that they fought off the bulk of the air invasion headed for them inland and the few that did make it to the beach were the few that slipped past them. Our protagonist on land is a British army private called Tommy (played by Fionn Whitehead in a spectacular debut). After escaping an ambush in the empty streets of Dunkirk, Tommy manages to reach the beach and looks for a way out. He meets Private Gibson on the beach and the pair spot an injured man. They know the best way to get on a ship is to act as stretcher bearers and they run towards the mole. Their fear and desperation is real but without cowardice, they were surrounded, the battle was over but the fight for survival had begun. They save Private Alex (Harry Styles) and the duo become a trio. They spend the entire film doing what they can to get out while Kenneth Branagh’s Commander Bolton (a composite character based in part on James Campbell Clouston) stands watch at the end of the mole. Hopefully Styles’ casting doesn’t distract too much from the story itself, he’s actually very good and to be fair Nolan didn’t know who he was when he auditioned, he got the part on his talent. The Sea segment sees Mr Dawson (played by the brilliant Mark Rylance) a mariner with his own vessel headed to help the troops with the help of his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) and local boy George (Barry Keoghan). Their journey is long and treacherous in such a small boat, with dog fights taking place above them and ships sinking around them. They pick up a solder floating alone in the middle of the channel (played by Cillian Murphy) who, suffering from shell shock, becomes a cause for concern. In the Air, RAF pilots Collins (Jack Lowden) and Farrier (Tom Hardy) pick off Luftwaffe fighters over the channel, while segments from the other threads can be seen from their viewpoint. The way the three threads interweave with each other is brilliant. A day scene is followed by a night scene and then back to day again, which really shouldn’t work but I have to say, this is some of the best editing in modern cinema. Nolan explained in an interview that "For the soldiers who embarked in the conflict, the events took place on different temporalities. On land, some stayed one week stuck on the beach. On the water, the events lasted a maximum day; and if you were flying to Dunkirk, the British spitfires would carry an hour of fuel. To mingle these different versions of history, one had to mix the temporal strata. Hence the complicated structure; even if the story is very simple.” He also went on to say “Do not repeat it to the studio but this will be my most experimental film." Each character represents a part of war that the solders would face; bravery, fear, the fight, shell shock and death. There is no empty martyrdom though, no gratuitous violence and not a drop of blood shown, only the fear, desperation and silence of the communal feeling of dread. However, it’s not without the artistic impact that the classics are known for. There are at least five scenes I can think of that will become iconic in the near future. It’s got everything that all the classics have combined without it ever feeling too much or over complicated. It’s utter perfection. Nolan not only looked at war films for inspirations but also of the sprawling early silent films. He didn’t hire thousands of extras but instead used cardboard cut outs and instead, spent money on real Spitfires and ships that would have been used in the rescue. Nothing is wasted, everything on screen matters. He cast young actors with little experience to represent the young and naïve solders who would have been there at the time. Some of the remaining survivors of Dunkirk were invited to the premiere and they all stated how accurate the film’s portrayal was, although a few confessed to Kenneth Branagh that the music in the film was louder than the explosions on the beach. Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack is astounding and matches the intensity of the story perfectly. The idea of using a ticking clock within the music works much better in reality than it does on paper. At last, a factual war film has been made with no false heroics, manufactured sentimentality or emotional manipulation. It feels like an impressionist window into the past, an honest depiction of the emotions felt by solders, civilians and a nation in general. It’s the history behind the history. It’s in instant classic, an epic masterpiece, the best film from Nolan and probably the best film of 2017. Anyone who complains that there were no Nazis and no blood doesn’t really known what a good war film is.