Dunkirk – Spoiler Alert
I have just got back from seeing the film. What can I say? It was intense and lived up to the hype.
The film has no frills, no character development, no backstory, there is no love interest and indeed there is very little dialogue. It’s simply a story of essentially four small groups of people – one from the Army, RN/Army officers on the Dunkirk mole, a Royal Air Force fighter patrol and men aboard one of the little ships. I guess the Royal Navy is a fifth group as they are naturally pretty much ever present, invariably adding something to each of the stories – largely as a result of their ships getting sunk having repeatedly put themselves in harm’s way to try and get the Army home.
One immediate thing I noticed was at the very start when a few lines were used to explain what was happening; it was not the Germans attacking and surrounding the French and British – it was ‘the enemy’. Okay…. that seems a little silly but I guess we are all friends now so….
I was a little confused near the start as one minute it was daytime and the next it was dark or heading that way. However, it quickly became apparent that the action is not strictly chronological. By the way this way of telling the story makes it look like the RAF patrol shoots down half the Luftwaffe, but one sees some of the scenes more than once from different viewpoints. This jumbled timeline idea actually works well.
The film doesn’t seek to tell the story of Dunkirk. The French are acknowledged - holding the perimeter along with a British rear-guard. Amongst the limited dialogue, there is reference to the German tanks being halted, the Luftwaffe being given the job of destroying the BEF and their French Allies, expectation that 30-45,000 British troops only are expected to be rescued, and that the RAF are trying to conserve aircraft and pilots for the battle still to come. But enough of the story is told through the trials and tribulations of the individual groups and the brief dialogue to make clear what is going on even if one knows nothing about this episode in history.
I was expecting some sort of soundtrack what with Hans Zimmer being involved but instead, during the action, there was a sort of noise as opposed to a dramatic music score. This worked really well too and added to the intensity.
How did the film fare on the trembling bottom lip front? Well there were a couple of occasions on which it was a good job I had the Kleenex on hand – I wasn’t emotional you understand, I just had something in my eye….
In summary – a great job Mr Nolan!
