[Review] Dunkirk (8/10)

Dunkirk is another heavy, heavy war movie; one that I would not wish to revisit again anytime soon.

Christopher Nolan shot this in IMAX and I was fortunate enough to catch it in one. The cinematography for every shot looked just beautiful. But the beauty in aesthetics could not compete with the broken spirits that his cast were able to deliver so aptly; well, most of them anyway. 

(And I am happy to report that that annoying extra did not have the same expression as he did in the trailer - he probably got some CGI treatment that were much needed.)

Watching this on IMAX had the added impact of how real the movie felt. That first shot of the enemy plane coming in to drop some bombs on the soldier looked and felt real on the giant screen, so much so that I, too, wanted to cower.

The first act had a great representation of just how dire the whole situation felt, with so many soldiers stranded on Dunkirk. 

The action, not what one would expect from a war movie as it was pretty much a one sided affair, felt very real under Nolan's direction. As well as the minimalist dog fight sequences that relied only on real life sound effects and devoid of any background music to artificially increase the tension; that realism somehow was amplified in the stark silence.

Unfortunately, there were some issues with the film that did not work out so well. The lack of character development here has to be a chief complaint. We did not get to know any of them, even the big named actors like Kenneth Branagh did not add much to the story. 

As well as the distorted timeline, which is of course a very Nolan thing to do, did not serve the movie this time around. Had it been a linear form of storytelling, the impact would not have been lesser; but this is more of a minor complaint.

And the inclusion of Harry Styles may not have been the best of casting, though he was not as glaring as I thought he would be, and also performed better than I thought with more screentime than I thought he would get. That scene where he and Aneurin Barnard and Fionn Whitehead's characters were sitting on the beach, watching a fellow soldier take his own life in the water; while Barnard and Whitehead both had the correct facial expression, Styles did not and that was distracting..

The performances here, even though with lack of any kind of development or backstory, were all brilliant. Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance and Tom Hardy were all brilliant in their roles; as well as Barnard and Whitehead. 

But when there was no tension on the screen, things tend to move a little slower in the pacing. Coupled that with the mixed up timeline and having to sit through the same plot twice, sometimes those were not the best of ways to be entertaining.

Still, I could see why Nolan made those decisions for his storytelling; he had a vision which he followed through, just that I personally could not appreciate them fully.