Dunkirk (2017)

When I was standing in line for tickets to this movie there was an older man in line near me wearing a Marine veterans baseball cap, I would guess he would have served probably in the 1950's. He was having a conversation with other people in line and stated that he remembered following events in Dunkirk on the radio when he was a boy. That was his introduction to the story of  Dunkirk, my introduction was about 15 years ago when I first saw the academy award winning movie Mrs. Miniver. In Mrs. Miniver there is a sequence where Mr. Miniver (Walter Pigeon) sets off in a small boat to take part in the civilian evacuation of British troops penned in by the Nazi's at Dunkirk, a French resort town just the opposite side of the channel. From the time I saw that sequence I wanted to see a feature length film about that inspiring true story. I got something of that in the 2007 film Atonement, based on the novel of the same name by Ian McEwan, a good portion of that story also takes place at Dunkirk, and includes a truly moving panoramic sequence of how solders dealt with the stress of their situation in a variety of ways.

So when I first saw previews for Dunkirk around a year ago I was pumped. The film is directed by the very talented Christopher Nolan (who turns 47 today) and is best known for his Dark Knight trilogy, and films that have elaborately constructed trick elements, like Memento, The Prestige, and Interstellar. That history made him seem a somewhat counterintuitive choice to helm a film on this subject matter, a World War II battle, but Nolan works some high concept structural elements into the film. The movie is primarily three narratives, all of course associated with Dunkirk, and all operating on a different time scale, though we cut between them as though they were occurring at approximately the same time.

The first story line concerns an unnamed British private (Fionn Whitehead) trying to escape from Dunkirk, and the various solders and sailors he meets along the way. This story takes place over the course of approximately a week. The second story occurs over the course of around a day, and centers on a father (Mark Rylance, the Soviet spy in Bridge of Spies) his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney), his son's friend George (Barry Keoghan), and a stranded solder they pick up at sea (Nolan favorite Cillian Murphy). The final story takes place over the course of about an hour, and concerns some British spitfire pilots, principally one played by Tom Hardy. All of these stories intersect at the end.

The movie is of course reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan, both in part to similar subject matter, as well as the kinetic way in which they were filmed. Nolen also makes good use of the 70mm film stock he shot in, and this film is worth seeing on an IMAX screen for that reason. Like the steely nerve the British showed in this battle Dunkirk has a nicely underplayed intensity about it, there is a subtle effective evocation of sacrifice, fear and courage to it. It is an epic film, and at times a moving film, but not quite the emotionally stirring spectacle I was both expecting and hoping for. For that element turn to the previously mentioned Mrs. Miniver and Atonement, but for a realistic examination of events, whose true importance may not have been fully visible to the participants until some time later, see Dunkirk. ***1/2