I have been fairly anti-Nolan recently, as I've found his last several films (since TDK) to be emotionally sterile and lacking in interesting characters, but I really liked Dunkirk and thought that it was his most emotional film to date (even though I've heard many people complain about the opposite).
Dunkirk
- Thread starter DLD
- Start date
I'll have to see the movie, but some of the criticism in Liam's article seems to me quite dubious. Like, that Nolan repeats himself - I don't care if his "tricks" are to be found in other movies of his, I care whether the film works or not. If it works, then it seems to me of little interest to the audience whether it's a "trick", or whether he's used that "trick" elsewhere. I mean, I haven't seen any masterpieces from Nolan, but Memento, Following, The Dark Knight, The Prestige, are all very good solid films and I don't see the flaws this critic seems to perceive. I haven't seen all of Nolan's work, but again, to me it all comes down to a specific movie, not the director overall - for example, I thought Inception was absolute garbage, so it would not have helped me that he did all those other good movies I enjoyed. So with Dunkirk - I don't care about his other movies, how good/bad he is, the film will stand on its own.
Liam Hall
Veteran
I agree completely Old Corpse. I watched Dunkirk with no agenda, I've liked some of his work, disliked some of his work. I felt in this film everything came together. I understand the criticism in that article I posted, but it seems born out of an anti-nolan agenda. I mean, who goes into a movie and deliberately ignores the cinematography and the soundtrack so they can scrutinise other aspects. That's preposterous.
Batutta
Major Contributor
I found this film to be oddly impersonal and characterless. While on the one hand I appreciate that Nolan just dumped you in the middle of the action, a lot of the faces were so indistinguishable from each other, that without any setup I found it difficult to form any emotional attachment to the proceedings. This is also compounded by the accents making it difficult to make out half the dialogue, especially from the grunts. However, by the midpoint, I started to get invested, especially with Mark Rylance and his little boat, enough so that the climax had some impact. My screening was hampered by the fact that the bass in the Mann's Chinese was so loud it was overpowering, to the point it started to make me nauseous and I had to move further back in the theater. Still, that didn't affect my issue with the characters lacking any rudimentary set up. This is a pretty basic guys get into a bad situation and get out of it again scenario, and call me old fashioned, but I thought it was important to give a sh*t about the guys who get into that situation.
We saw Dunkirk in Imax last weekend. Glad we opted for that over one of the conventional theaters. The combined impact of immersive visual field and the sound track was impressive. The sound track was indeed visceral in its impact, and would have been much less so in a lesser theater.
I agree that it is not an actor oriented character driven movie with conventional development arcs. Character does come out in fleeting moments in response to the stress of events, both bad and good. But we are not meant to be emotionally invested in individuals. The main character is war itself: confusion, anxiety, frustration, suspense, and sheer terror.
I thought the multiple timeline development could have been handled better. With respect to the soldiers that wind up in the sinking trawler, the air combat around the mine sweeper, and the central role of Mark Rylance's family and boat in those events, the development was confusing and not easily followed.
The sheer mass of soldiers on the Mole waiting to be rescued was a character in itself. Imagine the terror of being squeezed like sardines shoulder to shoulder on that dock with screaming Stukas diving on you. Another instance of the sound track adding to the impact of the film. Stukas actually had sirens built into their wheel fairings to terrorize their targets. It was an intentional part of their design.
There was a story posted on Indie film of a 97 year old survivor of Dunkirk attending the opening in Calgary Canada. He said it was like being there again.
Good enough for me. This film is more about the visceral experience of war than it is a linear historical narrative.
I agree that it is not an actor oriented character driven movie with conventional development arcs. Character does come out in fleeting moments in response to the stress of events, both bad and good. But we are not meant to be emotionally invested in individuals. The main character is war itself: confusion, anxiety, frustration, suspense, and sheer terror.
I thought the multiple timeline development could have been handled better. With respect to the soldiers that wind up in the sinking trawler, the air combat around the mine sweeper, and the central role of Mark Rylance's family and boat in those events, the development was confusing and not easily followed.
The sheer mass of soldiers on the Mole waiting to be rescued was a character in itself. Imagine the terror of being squeezed like sardines shoulder to shoulder on that dock with screaming Stukas diving on you. Another instance of the sound track adding to the impact of the film. Stukas actually had sirens built into their wheel fairings to terrorize their targets. It was an intentional part of their design.
There was a story posted on Indie film of a 97 year old survivor of Dunkirk attending the opening in Calgary Canada. He said it was like being there again.
Good enough for me. This film is more about the visceral experience of war than it is a linear historical narrative.
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Batutta
Major Contributor
I'd buy this if there were not several moments, and a climax, designed to evoke an emotional response from the audience regarding the fate and heroism of the characters. But there are many moments like this that do not carry the emotional charge they should because we have not been sufficiently set up to care. Branagh's 'hope' moment felt out of place and hokey because it was unearned. This film felt more like an experiment on Nolan's part to see how little set up and character details he could give an audience and still have them care. I didn't, for the most part.
Batutta
Major Contributor
As I suspected, this film was more of an experiment for Nolan--
http://www.avclub.com/article/christopher-nolan-originally-wanted-shoot-dunkirk--259064
http://www.avclub.com/article/christopher-nolan-originally-wanted-shoot-dunkirk--259064
I once made that point to Charlie Rose, when he was whining how SPR was the "first real WWII combat film". The only thing that I didn't like about "Stalingrad" was the dialog audio quality, which was too clean for the hellish mayhem that was the city combat. One expected it to be dubbed off a scratch track but it came out as too sterile.
PS. There was also a more recent (2013) Russian made film also called "Stalingrad" - so much for the copyright ... oh, wait, that's Russia we're talking about - which was utter garbage.
Actually, I don't believe such a film exists. Yes, there is a 2013 movie Stalingrad, and a 1993 one, but none for 1992. Incidentally, Sergio Leone wanted to make a WWII movie set in Russia, and was quite far along in his plans, but died before he got a chance to make it... given the sweep and grandiose scale Leone was planning, it would've been really something. Too bad it didn't happen.
"War and Peace" allegedly cost 17 million rubles to make in the mid-60's, when an average working man was bringing home 100r/mo. And the services of the Honorary Cavalry battalion of the Red Army (kept around for the parade purposes only) was given to Bondarchuk free of charge. An average Soviet movie of the era cost anywhere from 300,000r to 1,000,000r to make. "War and Peace" did win the Best Foreign Oscar.
PS. Josef Vilsmaier's film was made for the 50th anniversary of the battle (September, 1942-Fenruary, 1943).
PS. Josef Vilsmaier's film was made for the 50th anniversary of the battle (September, 1942-Fenruary, 1943).
charliemcdanger
Well-known member
Late to the party on this one but I saw it a couple nights ago, and it fell into the rare class of film that made me race home to read who could possibly dislike it and why. Edelstein's column was prominent, and in some version (can't find it at the moment), a commenter eviscerates him, not just on aesthetics, but on factual misunderstandings. The one I remember clearly was in reference to
My general suspicion is that given current politics, much of the animus against the film will be motivated by an interpretation that sees it as a celebration of whiteness, maleness, and western values. Setting aside the politics, I found the film stunning, spare, and gorgeous. I respect Nolan's decision to not shoehorn in a personal narrative, and to let it be a war-is-hell experience. I'm largely indifferent to the Nolan work that I've seen (Memento and Inception both ambitious and good, Interstellar felt like big-studio trype), but here I take off my hat.
See it on the big screen if you can.
The commenter pointed out that the Mole could not have been more clearly or repeatedly referenced as the physical jetty, not a person.
My general suspicion is that given current politics, much of the animus against the film will be motivated by an interpretation that sees it as a celebration of whiteness, maleness, and western values. Setting aside the politics, I found the film stunning, spare, and gorgeous. I respect Nolan's decision to not shoehorn in a personal narrative, and to let it be a war-is-hell experience. I'm largely indifferent to the Nolan work that I've seen (Memento and Inception both ambitious and good, Interstellar felt like big-studio trype), but here I take off my hat.
See it on the big screen if you can.
Both sides on the battlefront were white, male and Western (in case of the Germans, Mitteleuropa, aka Central Europe).
In any case, I just stumbled onto a 1964 French film, which is known in English as "Weekend at Dunkirk" ("Week-end à Zuydcoote" in its original French), with Jean-Paul Belmondo in the starring role. JPB was a huge star by then and was sort of playing the same role he's always played. The plot centers on the cutoff French infantry that is clinging to a strip of the coast next to Dunkirk, with the main hero trying to catch a ride across the Channel with the BEF. The story arc is a bit flat, as most scenes seem like individual sketches that are barely tied together into a coherent narrative.