By: Ana Maria Mejia Morales
I usually don’t like action movies. Forgive my taste, but I truly believe that cinema, the seventh art, should be used for more than loud explosions, stunt men, and fragile masculinity. I usually apply this opinion liberally, except when it comes to the annoyingly talented director, Christopher Nolan.
Nolan manages to keep me off my seat for the duration of his movies, he demands the attention of every sense I have, he plays with my perception of time, and even makes me doubt my ethical stances. Dunkirk, Nolan’s new film, is no exception.
Dunkirk tells the story of one of the most important battles of the Second World War, one that occurred between the Allies and Nazi Germany in Dunkerque, France, from May 26 to June 4, 1940. It was a fight that was mostly about defence and evacuation as the Germans cornered over 400,000 Allied troops at the French oceanside.
The British Expeditionary Force faced a high chance of being captured or killed. The reason why the battle went down in history books and received legend status as Operation Dynamo is because over 338,226 men were evacuated, a feat that was thought of as impossible.
“The three-story narrative used by the director humanizes the whole battle…”
The audience is able to see the massive amounts of soldiers left in Dunkirk, all crowded together, dropping to the floor as they saw or heard an enemy plane on the horizon. Nolan’s epic use of the IMAX camera is one of the reasons audiences find themselves so immersed in the movie. Nolan manages to show the hopelessness of war: messy, loud, scary, and at times, useless. However, the three-story narrative used by the director humanizes the whole battle through the personal experiences of each man.
The first story follows Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), a scrawny young English boy whom the audience immediately cares for due to his looks: hunched shoulders, panicked eyes, and an army uniform too big on his body, as if he stole it from his father.
The second narrative takes place at sea, where one sees father (Mark Rylance) and son (Tom Glynn-Carney) joined by pubescent George (Barry Keoghan) set sail in their own boat to join the civilian fleet that saved thousands of lives by traversing the English Channel to ferry soldiers away from danger. This story lasts only one day, and leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth following a death, a soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (played by the mesmerizing Cillian Murphy), and a miserable rescue.
The third story is the most fast-paced, lasting only an hour, and uses the air as its stage. We follow Jack Lowden and Tom Hardy, as pilots. Hardy proves to world audiences despite having half his face covered, that he is one of the best actors of our time.
Nolan merges each of these stories into a single entity. This is not always done smoothly, but the effect is strong. This, mixed with the phenomenal score by Hans Zimmer and the little bits of (almost non-existent) dialogue said by all of the characters, is what makes Dunkirk a masterpiece.
