The Tenth film in my comprehensive
analysis of the films of
Christopher Nolan
is the WWII epic Dunkirk. This film marks a number of “firsts” for
the acclaimed auteur. It is the first war film of his career, it is his first semi-biographical
period film (in that it is a real life event that happened) it is the first
time working with stars like Mark Rylance, and Henry Styles, it is the first to
have 75% of its run time shot in 70mm IMAX film, and it is the first (Non-Batman)
film since his break out hit Memento to receive near flawless praise from critics. As of this
writing, Dunkirk’s advanced ticket sales (Thursday evening screenings) have totaled 5.5
million dollars.
However, unlike a lot of “seasonal blockbusters” Nolan films always seem to
stick around in the theaters longer than the typical summer fanfare. The best
example of this being Inception who’s box office run was analogous to
“the little engine that could” and is still the largest grossing (Non-Batman)
Nolan film to date. Currently, Dunkirk is projected to take home a
modest, but respectable 30-40 million dollars on opening weekend. It is my hope
that with its positive buzz, and critical reception, the present estimate is a
conservative one; because this film is amazing.
PLOT
Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk recounts the evacuation of British and
French soldiers
off of the beaches of Dunkirk, France by requisitioned civilian vessels during
the week of May 26th-June 4th 1940. The film, told in Triptych story structure, focuses on three
major parts of that evacuation:
1. The Land: The Soldiers (among them Harry
Styles and Kenneth Branagh) on the beach, getting boxed in by the German army,
hoping against hope that they can find a way home.
2. The Sea: Appropriated civilian vessels
(piloted by Mark Rylance and featuring Cillian Murphy) as they leave England to
help rescue the soldier.
3. The Air: A group of three British
airmen (Tom Hardy, Michael Caine and Jack Lowman) whom provide cover during the
evacuation.
FILM ANALYSIS
Overall
Impressions
This film is the best film of the year,
and I don’t see many other films surpassing it in the remaining months of 2017.
The film is a breathless, suspenseful, white-knuckling caustic assault of
sensory overload which, at a tight 107min, never lets you go. The film’s run
time is notable due to the last four of Nolan’s Films (The Dark Knight,
Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, and Interstellar) clocking in
between 145min to 179min. Here, Nolan seems to have gone back to the economy of
storytelling that we haven’t seen from him since The Prestige. This is a welcomed
return to the kind of pacing control and lean focus of his earlier films (such
as the aforementioned Memento, or
even Following).
Unlike those longer films, Dunkirk is not a story about the entire
battle and complete evacuation, (as I am sure it would be if the runtime was
any longer). It tells the middle of the story. It drops you in after the battle,
and carries you through the evacuation; but the film ends before the evacuation
is completely over. The film lives in the middle space between the beginning
and the ending of a historical event. This allows Nolan the space he needs to
“turn things up to eleven”. From the very first frame of soldiers clutching at
fear mongering propaganda dropped by enemy war planes, the audience is gripped
by an all-consuming tension that, while allowing a few brief moments of relief,
they are never truly released from until the screen cuts to black at the end of
the film. It is then that the audience
can exhale, only to then cheer at the films brilliance.
The Structure
The first rule of being a “Nolanite” (A
ravenous Christopher Nolan fan) is that a Christopher Nolan film will not have
a linear story structure. Part of the overall fun of a Nolan film is to attempt
to piece it together as Nolan lays the labyrinth before me. To this day, Nolan
has never disappointed me in this regard, unlike some other directors.
I was unaware of what a Triptych structure
was until this film. A technique
typically used in painting (of murals), A triptych painting structure involves
three separate panels that are at once independent and, when put together, part
of a complete story. The three parts of the film are the aforementioned The
Land (which Nolan calls “the mole”), The Sea, and The Air. Nolan even uncharacteristically gives out
subtle hints of how those pieces fit together. He provides a subheading time
stamp as to how long each one of the vignettes lasted in film time, allowing
the audience to easily follow along.
Nolan’s atypical transparency can be attributed
to his very real chances of receiving an Academy Award. With the subject matter
of WWII historically generating award gold, Nolan and his entire team, are
strong contenders to sweep the 2018 Oscars. It isn’t that he is explicitly
“dumbing down” his esoterically pretentious pedagogy (that I have come to
love). It is that he seems to be leading the audience a little more than he has
in the past; making sure that no audience member had any doubt about what
happened, in what order, and to whom at the film’s end. With a filmography that is rich in subtext
and subversion, it is plausible that Nolan, desiring (much deserved)
recognition from the Academy, made a choice to be less opaque in hopes that the
added clarity may help his chances at winning the coveted award.
Outside of motivation, the structure is
woven beautifully together; each part of the three piece structure fuels and
builds off of the other two. Instead of linearly moving from one part of the
story to the next, Nolan and editor Lee Smith begin each of the stories at the
same time; cutting back and forth between them.
This consistent shift of character, perspective and action; Nolan uses
to build tension to the point that eventually, with each cut to multiple people
in peril, there is no respite for the audience. All that is left is the
imbalance of constantly teetering on the edge of their seat. There is one
sequence in particular where Nolan and Smith cut between the three different
sequences, and in each sequence, one or more characters are in danger of
drowning. So, even though we jump between sequences, there is this mounting
dread that is slowly turning into doom in the hearts of the audience as we
watch characters fight the sea, in various different capacities. The structure
and the editing style hooks us deep into the individual moments in the film
which propels us into the next; and with an exercise in minimalist dialogue, it
is the craftsmanship of these intercut moments that progresses the story.
Cinematography, and
Soundtrack
A well-known serial collaborator,
Christopher Nolan always has a spot open for the hand full of
individuals
with whom he works well, both behind and in front of the camera. Tom Hardy (who
has worked with Nolan 3 times including Dunkirk)
has been cited in an interview saying that “When Christopher Nolan asks you
to be in a movie, you just say yes and find out what your part is later.”
However, given Tom Hardy’s previous roles in Nolan’s films there is a pretty
good chance, the next film will require the majority of his face be
covered. In addition to Hardy, Nolan has
worked with Cillian Murphy 5 times (in various capacities) Christian Bale, 4
times and his grand “lucky charm” Sir Michael Caine (including the voice cameo
in Dunkirk) 7 out of his last 10
films.
However, Dunkirk marks only the sophomore outing for Nolan and Director of
Photography Hoyte Van Hoytema. Starting
on Interstellar, Hoytema took over
for Wally Pfister while he was off making Transcendence.
Together Hoytema and Nolan have continued to champion the medium of film.
They attempt to push film beyond the boundaries of everyday filmmaking, into a
premium crisp and vibrantly palpable experience, through the use and continued
exploration of IMAX film and large print film stock. Dunkirk
is the latest fruit of that labor.
Dunkirk
is the first full length feature film to have 75% of the film shot with
IMAX cameras. The IMAX camera that shoots in 15/70mm allows this biographical
war epic to literally be larger than life (and many small buildings). The
result is a completely immersive experience to the audience that is so
enveloping that few have commented on the aspect ratio changes throughout the
film as the other 25% of the film was shot on 35mm at a different aspect ratio.
Nolan and Smith wove these changes so expertly in the middle of the story (many
times within the same shot) that it was seamless. But it was Nolan and Hoytema (who previously
created a shoulder rig for the infamously heavy camera on Interstellar), who out
did themselves on Dunkirk where they
not only built an IMAX rig so that it would fit into a 1940 Supermarine
Spitfire cockpit, but they also strapped an IMAX camera to the outside of one
of those planes and then crashed it into the ocean. Ambition, thy name is
Nolan.
Very rarely in modern cinema, does
a war epic get a PG-13 rating. Unlike its predecessors such as Saving Private Ryan, Apocalypse Now, or Platoon, Dunkirk itself is pretty
bloodless. It trades the gore of war and crimson clad warfare, for wiry
tension, trusting in the audience’s imagination to fill in the graphic gaps
between each bullet, bomb, and the impossible decision of whether to drown or
burn to death. It is that trade off, along with the effort of using IMAX
cameras that pays off in spades. With it, Nolan and Hoytema are able to capture
the terror exhaustion and determination on the faces of those in the scene.
This personalizes their struggle and amplifies their terror in the hearts of
the audience.
An
example of one such scene is the way Nolan and Hoytema personalize the
capsizing of British Destroyer. In this particular unnerving IMAX sequence, the
point of view is from the perspective of soldiers on the collapsing
vessel. Nolan and Hoytema use a camera
technique called a “Dutch Tilt” (something that
can be overused if not careful)
to make it seem like a wall of water was engulfing the men where they
stood. A hauntingly well-crafted shot
displaying a horror that is hard to shake once you leave the theater.
Another of Nolan’s frequent
collaborators over the last 6 films has been Hans Zimmer. Hans Zimmer is the
genius composer that has brought us a
literal cacophony of sound in his tenure working in film. Often times, a
Zimmer score has been the bright spot in a lot of dim films. However it is his
work with Christopher Nolan that Zimmer always seems to outdo himself. From the
Brilliance of the Joker’s theme in The
Dark Knight to Catwoman's and Bane’s theme in Rises, to the
cosmic “docking sequence in Interstellar
Zimmer titled “No Time for Caution”, Nolan makes Zimmer better. Conversely, the
melodies that Zimmer creates for Nolan are just right to emphasize what is on
screen, allowing the film to reach the desired emotional pitch. This is somewhat
ironic considering that when Zimmer scores a Nolan film he is purposefully ignorant
about the film’s plot.
With Dunkirk, Zimmer uses a number of different practical and symphonic
sounds that are consistently building up tension. Whether that be the use of
the sound of Nolan’s own pocket watch during the sea rescue to conveying the
bleakness and hopelessness that the soldiers on the beach listening as time
literally ticked away; or the use of actual WWII plane engines in the theme for
the aerial dog fights to get to exacerbate the intense feelings. Zimmer’s score
preys on the audience, never really feeling the characters are out of danger
even when it seems they are. The best track for Zimmer’s score is his theme for
the air sequences called “Supermarine” as we follow Tom Hardy’s Ferrier giving
cover to both boat and soldier.
CRITICISM
Having only seen the film once, and
also having little prior knowledge of the actual events that this film is based
on, I cannot give a deeply rooted social critique of the actual plot and
development of the story. This may
change in my subsequent viewings and when the film is released on Blu-ray. Yet,
there seems to be a strong theme that is easily conveyed through a single
viewing.
Theme: Survival is
Heroic
Dunkirk is a war film that
glorifies the human struggle of war without glorifying the violence of war
itself. Part of this is done though the cleaver editing and shot composition of
this PG-13 film and their ability to not dwell on the violence. Yet, as I
mentioned above, that is somehow more breathtaking, and at times more sinister
on Nolan’s part, because the greatest horrors are the ones that we create in
our own mind. We feel the human struggle for war because we see the struggle
play out on the faces of the soldiers, mariners, and pilots on screen. We feel
their struggle because we read it through their portrayal.
A consistent criticism of Nolan is
that he is a cold filmmaker, that he lacks the ability to give the audience a
human connection, and character development that leads to feelings of compassion
for those on screen. I have never felt that. I don’t believe that Nolan is a
cold filmmaker, I believe that he thinks that empathy for characters needs to
be predicated on personal audience investment. Nolan’s Dunkirk is indeed propelled by story and less by character, predominantly
because the characters are (in my mind) purposefully left two dimensional so
that they could retain their anonymity; thus becoming a blank canvas on which
the audience can project themselves.
In a film where the dialogue is
minimal, each word uttered becomes rich with subtext and deeper meaning. There
was one exchange between two characters that caught my attention. One of the
evacuated soldiers is handed a blanket by a volunteer when they get back to
England.
Volunteer: Thank you, well done.
Soldier: We didn’t do anything, we just survived.
Volunteer:
Sometimes that is enough.
In
our current socio-political climate there seems to be a lack of consideration
and kindness to the point that individuals are criticized for not producing
anything, not being successful. This exchange caught my attention because it
recognized that in a dire situation that seems hopeless, life is a prosperous
outcome, in and of itself. The scene described above, and the train scene that
follows, gives off a feeling of community that we seem to have lost since. It
shows the celebration of a defeat. Not because we revel in defeat, but because even
though the battle was a complete military disaster, 84% of the men trapped were
able to make it home. The message, life
is worth celebrating. That does not sound like a cold filmmaker at all.
Nolan’s
Protagonist Problem
Another criticism that has been leveled
against the film, and for Nolan’s entire career, is that the majority of his
films tend to be populated by a lot of white cisgender men. This is a criticism
that is sadly apt considering Nolan’s previous work; and while it is a
criticism that some, including myself to be honest, have let slide and do not
address it due to the overall quality of the work itself (with Dunkirk the excuse of it being a period
piece is used); which should not let him off the hook.
Secondly, many of Nolan’s male
protagonists tend to also have backstories that involve a dead female spouse or
relative that motivates them into action. This is a constant problem in the
majority of Nolan’s filmography (along with the very problematic fridging, or
in some cases “water tanking” (ala The
Prestige) of those female characters). It seems that he does not know how
to write women or female characters in general. His best attempt at this,
Selena Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises, was
not even his first choice to be included in the film. He had to be convinced to
add her in the film by his brother, Jonathan Nolan.
Finally, I would like to see Nolan take on
this deficit by having a female writing partner, or at least someone that can
look over his scripts to make sure there is both representation and development
for women and people of color throughout his stories. It is obvious, that this
is a blind spot in his writing ability (as it is for many white men). The crime
is not having this problem, the crime is in not acknowledging it or trying to
resolve it. Christopher Nolan is a
brilliant filmmaker in almost every way. This change, would make him perfect. I
very much want that for him, and for his fellow fans.
CONCLUSION
This is Nolan’s
best work to date.
While I may sound like a broken record, it is my pleasure to say it because
Nolan keeps getting better as a filmmaker. He keeps pushing himself in both
technique and technical brilliance that helps to challenge the way that movies
are made, and improving the industry as a whole. It seems that Nolan is hell bent on taking on
every genre of film, and upon each success, causing its reinvention. I can’t
wait to see what genre he tackles next. While there are many rumors of what
Christopher Nolan will do next, it is sure to be a spectacular well-crafted
journey that will be worth every film frame.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Film Formats
While Dunkirk
is out now in wide release, it is in a variety of
digital and film formats. There is regular Digital Cinema Projection (DCP)
1:85:1 aspect ratio (which is a digital format you will find at any local
Cineplex) IMAX Xenon projection at 1:9:1 aspect ratio, IMAX Digital and 4k
laser projection is at 1:43:1 ( this is the closest digital format to film to
date). On film, it is being shown in 35mm 2:45:1 aspect ratio, 70mm film 2:20:1
aspect ratio, and IMAX 70mm in 1:43:1 aspect
ratio. In my opinion, the last in this list is by far the best presentation, with
the clearest picture and the most encompassing detail. If you have both the
ability, and the means to see the film in the IMAX 70mm film I recommend that
you do so; at least for your first viewing experience. Regarding all subsequent
viewings, IMAX 70mm is not required, but it would be better if you could be
able to see it on film, rather than one of the digital projections. Seeing it
on film was, as a cinephile, a pure delight. Being able to see the crispness of
the image and have an internal smirk of watching the reel change added to my
overall experience. This should be taken into consideration, if you decide to
seek out an alternate presentation that is not the typical DCP.
