Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

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https://ksassets.timeincuk.net/wp/uploads/sites/55/2017/06/Dunkirk-poster-2349857-600x875.jpeg

[transmogrifier]

64/100

Pros: Interesting structure, lean and direct, tense set pieces, great aerial photography, I liked the lack of backstory and typical character beats.

Cons: incessant fucking score that just won't shut up, raggedy editing in parts, last five minutes seems to be transported in from a Tom Hooper version of this story, cross-cutting starts to become a crutch, extending simple situations far longer than they need to be (e.g. escaping the plane), the last act when the three parts of the story combine is quite awkwardly constructed (did we really need to see the same ship sink three times?)

In sum: good but flawed. Basically every Nolan film except Memento (all good) and Batman Begins (all flaws). One of the best war films ever made? Come on now.

Ranking:

1. Memento (80)
2. Inception (69)
3. Dunkirk (64)
4. The Dark Knight Rises (64)
5. Insomnia (63)
6. The Prestige (63)
7. Interstellar (57)
8. The Dark Knight (55)
9. Batman Begins (51)

[TGM]

I'm gonna be the contrarian and say that seeing this in a large screen format isn't exactly a necessity. If anything, if you absolutely must see this in IMAX, then do so for the sound design and the score, two of Nolan's trademarks that are on full throttle in this film. In addition to those, the editing is certainly a Nolan trait that really signifies this as one of his films, and yeah, it's pretty good. I wouldn't go so far as to call it the "best war film ever", as I'm seeing people claim it to be. And my biggest issues with it pertained to "The Mole" portion of the story, mostly in regards to the fact that every single character looks exactly the same as one another, so I never knew who I was watching on screen the majority of the time in this section. It's not helped at all by the fact that anyone barely has any opportunity to have much character to at least call attention to them and make them stand apart from one another, so yeah, for that reason, those sections grew to be the most tedious to get through, particularly as we got closer to the end and they blended together more and more.

Similarly tedious as the film progressed was the editing decisions, particularly as the three sections started to intertwine more and more near the end. I had a similar feeling when this was happening as I did during Memento the first time around, where it felt like gimmicky editing for the sake of it. I would presume the idea here is to give the audience a similar sense of disorientation as the characters on screen, but it honestly just killed some of the tension for me. Not a huge issue, but an issue nontheless that persisted as mildly distracting.

The other two segments were spectacular, however, and any character issues I might've had with that third segment are totally a non-factor in these. The aerial sections in particular were probably the strongest parts to this thing, simply breathtaking at times.

All in all, I would say that this is probably middle-road Nolan. Not great, but far from anything I'd consider bad, so nowhere close to Dark Knight Rises territory.

[Pop Trash]

The Dark Knight Rises (64)
The Dark Knight (55)


lol wut?

[TGM]

Interstellar
The Dark Knight
Inception
The Prestige
Batman Begins
Memento
Dunkirk
Following
Insomnia
The Dark Knight Rises

(Memento and Dunkirk are currently a bit of a toss-up for me. I'd have to give Dunkirk more time to settle to be certain, really.)

[transmogrifier]

lol wut?

The Dark Knight is tedious, especially the last act. The Dark Knight Rises is a messy grab-bag of interesting ideas so you don't know what is coming next. I prefer the latter.

[Pop Trash]

The Dark Knight is tedious, especially the last act. The Dark Knight Rises is a messy grab-bag of interesting ideas so you don't know what is coming next. I prefer the latter.

That's a big opinion.

[transmogrifier]

That's a big opinion.

I've made my peace with not seeing The Dark Knight as some type of staggering masterpiece as some other claim; to me it's kinda stolid, square, dull, and inelegant in its technical details. Acting is good, and the plot is fine, except for the terrible use of Two-Face.

[Pop Trash]

I've made my peace with not seeing The Dark Knight as some type of staggering masterpiece as some other claim; to me it's kinda stolid, square, dull, and inelegant in its technical details. Acting is good, and the plot is fine, except for the terrible use of Two-Face.

For you.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9wi0cPrU4U

[Scar]

I'm with trans in rating Rises higher. Of course, I :heart: Bane.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Skitch]

They're about even for me.

[Dukefrukem]

It's hard to argue against the Dark Knight's flaws towards the third act. The stuff with the boat and Dent feels so cluttered (and Goyer) that it takes away the beats of the previews two acts. For me, it's not enough to ruin the movie. But I can see for others how it's hard to jump on board.

[Ezee E]

I'm glad I stayed away from reviews on this as I'm loving the way this story was told with the three different timelines. Even with the titles, it took me a moment to figure that out.

I should probably raise my score, but looking forward to hearing what others think about it on here.

A little overbearing on the score, but a straightforward approach to the approach kept me on edge through the whole movie. It may also be the best use of aerial dogfighting that I can even think of. If anything, some of the tense scenes were a bit repetitive with three different scenes of near-drowning, and bullets coming through thew wall or steel.

Saw this on TRUE IMAX, 70 MM. Awesome.

[transmogrifier]

I'm glad I stayed away from reviews on this as I'm loving the way this story was told with the three different timelines. Even with the titles, it took me a moment to figure that out.

I should probably raise my score, but looking forward to hearing what others think about it on here.

A little overbearing on the score, but a straightforward approach to the approach kept me on edge through the whole movie. It may also be the best use of aerial dogfighting that I can even think of. If anything, some of the tense scenes were a bit repetitive with three different scenes of near-drowning, and bullets coming through thew wall or steel.

Saw this on TRUE IMAX, 70 MM. Awesome.

My two biggest problems with the structure are (1) the Mole section never feels like a week - it misses out on that unique mix of danger and boredom by compressing everything so it feels like two days at most, and (2) the section from when the ship is refloated until Rylance starts taking on survivors (which is designed as the climax) is a mess, with the same ship showing getting bombed three times for no real reason except to add artificial incoherence.

[Weems]

There's no story. I don't know what the point of this movie is. 1/10

[Peng]

Nolan at his most precise, with a story perfectly calibrated to his strengths and another ambitious structural gambit. I need to see it again though to see if the emotions, already built into this survival tale, will register more along with the awe. Will just say now that I seem to prefer Nolan when he tackles something with ambition almost, or a bit, out of his reach, so that he inevitably needs to wring more naked, productively messy emotions more out of his premise (ending Batman's legacy on a big-scale scope in TDKR; finding deep-rooted emotions in Inception's multiple layers; throwing himself fully into sentimentality to ground the vastness of Interstellar).

Still a great flip side of Saving Private Ryan's opening scene; whereas SPR throws viewers right in the middle of a concentrated, bloody, chaotic war zone, Dunkirk's time-lapse structure puts us in the temporally disoriented minds of those waiting and struggling for ways out of battle. High-alert intensity seem to make events bleed into one another. Days pass by in what seem like minutes, and vice versa. New faces gone instantly, or familiar, can't-quite-place-it ones bob into view. And we are able to register the events more than in one or two instincts -- with questions about legacy and one's moral self -- only afterwards. 8.5/10

[Peng]

Ranking (TDKR and The Prestige do need a rewatch though):

1. The Dark Knight
2. Memento
3. Interstellar
4. The Dark Knight Rises
5. Inception
6. Dunkirk
7. Batman Begins
8. Insomnia
9. The Prestige
10. Following

[Weems]

For me:

1. The Dark Knight
2. Interstellar
3. The Prestige / Inception
5. Insomnia
6. Batman Begins
7. Memento
8. The Dark Knight Rises / Dunkirk

[Ivan Drago]

This was so incredibly captivating in every aspect of its visuals and score that I forgot it had a non-linear structure until halfway through. It's a little challenging to follow for that reason, and the sound mixing has the same issues as it did in Interstellar, primarily when the film follows Tom Hardy's character up in the air. But despite that, Christopher Nolan improved himself as a director with this film by telling the story of the Dunkirk evacuation in World War II through the visual performances of his actors, career-best cinematography from Hoyte van Hoytema, and a tense score that accompanies the film from beginning to end. It also stands out in the war genre through its lack of gore, visual storytelling and portraying just enough of every horror of war without getting too preachy. Overall, Dunkirk is a film that’s certainly worth talking about in the awards conversation, is without question the most visually breathtaking film of the year so far, and one that needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible.

[Morris Schæffer]

30 min. To go. Biggest imax in Europe. I'm ready!

[Skitch]

1/10

In a world where The Asylum exists, this seems excessive.

[Morris Schæffer]

The sensory overload was almost too much at times with my seat literally vibrating during explosive moments. That said, I think this is a remarkable experience, not a flawless one, but as remarkable as one could ever hope to experience during any movie summer. I'm not sure I applaud its decision to shy away from the true horrors of war, instead opting to make water the true enemy here. It's a little odd speaking of the miracle of Dunkirk since I didn't feel it was as tense or soaked in desperation as I had expected. Hardy shoots down a few planes and that's basically it, Stukas sound terrifying when they swoop down, but do not seem to dole out quite as much pain and suffering. But I suppose the real heroes here are the regular joes who get in their pleasure yachts and come to the rescue. It's no coincidence that the biggest death in the movie is the kid who tags along with Rylance and his son although his demise is kinda odd. I wonder if that's really how it went down. Still, they're responsible for the miracle of Dunkirk I guess and the tagline makes this quite obvious when it states that 'home came for them.'

There's one tracking shot at the end of Farrier's Spitfire flying along the Dunkirk coast that is breathtaking, just stunningly beautiful. Perhaps I wouldn't have minded a slightly more epic runtime with a bit more meat on its bones either although I understand Nolan went for a sort of almost real-time countdown movie. It seems a bunch of movies inspired him to make Dunkirk and two of them are Speed and Tony Scott's Unstoppable.

[Morris Schæffer]

This was so incredibly captivating in every aspect of its visuals and score that I forgot it had a non-linear structure until halfway through. It's a little challenging to follow for that reason, and the sound mixing has the same issues as it did in Interstellar, primarily when the film follows Tom Hardy's character up in the air. But despite that, Christopher Nolan improved himself as a director with this film by telling the story of the Dunkirk evacuation in World War II through the visual performances of his actors, career-best cinematography from Hoyte van Hoytema, and a tense score that accompanies the film from beginning to end. It also stands out in the war genre through its lack of gore, visual storytelling and portraying just enough of every horror of war without getting too preachy. Overall, Dunkirk is a film that’s certainly worth talking about in the awards conversation, is without question the most visually breathtaking film of the year so far, and one that needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible.

What this guy says is kinda what I felt also, the noise levels were way the fuck up there.


In the cinema where I watched writer/director Christopher Nolan’s breathtakingly intense new film, the WWII action-drama Dunkirk, the sound was loud. I mean, loud. Utterly, staggeringly, face-meltingly loud. At one point, as Nolan whooshed planes above his characters’ heads for the nth-hundredth time, I wondered whether it might be unrealistically noisy: that is, whether war in real life was actually significantly quieter than the bone-perforating clamour blasting out of the speakers.

[Wryan]

Wasn't deafening at my IMAX; felt appropriately tuned.

This was quite tense--a solid, stately movie. I don't think the chopped stories benefited the movie that much except in the case where the pilot "waves" from his downed plane and we later realize why. That was a nice touch. Having seen the movie, I'm glad it wasn't longer, actually. It tells a nicely contained series of beats about a difficult moment. Had something of Fury Road to it in its headlong rush of narrative, minimal dialogue and pounding score. I'm pretty sure I only caught about 80% of the mumbly accented dialogue, tho.

Thought it was quite worth seeing in IMAX. Some of those enormous aerial vistas were breathtaking.

[Ezee E]

My IMAX sound can be blamed on the theater and not the movie. When they showed the preview for mother!, I couldn't even hear a word.

[Melville]

Beautiful, tense, and spare. I've been interested in how Nolan's last few movies have had extended action sequences fill out their entire final acts, and here he takes that even further: the whole thing is basically one sustained note. As in his other recent movies, a lot of the tension is maintained with the encompassing, propulsive sound design and score, but here he fits in more striking, emotive imagery, particularly the foam and wind of the desolate beach. And the movie definitely benefits from having trimmed down dialogue, avoiding Nolan's typical weakness; it gives the whole thing a touch of stereotypical British stoicism.

I disagree with those who think it doesn't evoke enough desperation. I thought it did that very effectively, in a nicely restrained way. It let the scenes and characters' actions bring emotion into the story naturally. And the arrival of the flotilla was rousing as hell. Though I do agree with Trans' criticism that the beach segments seemed like a day and a half instead of a week.

Nolan ranked:

1. Dunkirk
2. Interstellar
3. The Dark Knight Rises
4. Inception
5. Insomnia
6. The Dark Knight
7. The Prestige
8. Memento
9. Following
10. Batman Begins

I wouldn't call any of them favorites, but the bottom two are the only ones I dislike. Though I don't remember Insomnia, The Prestige, or Following very well.

[Morris Schæffer]

Another thing is that it feels like a trimmed down recreation of the real thing. 700 pleasure boats went out but this scope is never conveyed nor of the 400000 troops stuck on the beach. Although the movie feels authentic enough. I really want to see it again.

But it's not an unbearably tense movie as a lot of critics seem to be saying.

[TGM]

But it's not an unbearably tense movie as a lot of critics seem to be saying.

Agreed, really didn't find it all that tense at all really. 47 Meters Down is still by far the most tense experience I've had at the movies this uear.

[Morris Schæffer]

Agreed, really didn't find it all that tense at all really. 47 Meters Down is still by far the most tense experience I've had at the movies this uear.

It feels a tad manufactured as if shock and awe can somehow make something more suspenseful. I understand Trans a bit more now when he said Zimmer's score is incessant. There are many stunning shots that would have benefited from relative quietness.

[Stay Puft]

I'm with Weems. I couldn't stand this. I was bored out of my mind the whole time.

[Ivan Drago]

Nolan ranked:

1. Memento
2. The Dark Knight
3. The Prestige
4. Batman Begins
5. Dunkirk
6. Inception
7. Insomnia
8. The Dark Knight Rises
9. Interstellar
10. Following

[Morris Schæffer]

Another thing which surprised me a little bit is the vague sloppyness of the production. When the soldier is helping the other soldier bury someone at the beginning, the roofs of unmistakably modern buildings can be glimpsed in the distance. Furthermore, Dunkirk was shot to hell when the evacuation began, but the opening scenes show a postcard pretty town.

[transmogrifier]

The score annoyed me because it provides artificial tension in place of actually taking the time to show what was happening on the perimeter and give an idea of what was bearing down on them. The film makes a calculated decision to turn to Hollywood artifice to generate the story momentum, leaving a lot of the interesting stuff behind.

[Lazlo]

Loved every bit of this both times I saw it. The sustained tension is incredible and the filmmaking, from the structure to the acting to the camera work, is just brilliant. I also can't think of better dogfight/flying footage in any other movie.

Nolan:

1. The Dark Knight
2. Interstellar
3. Dunkirk
4. The Prestige
5. Inception
6. Memento
7. Batman Begins
8. The Dark Knight Rises
9. Insomnia
10. Following

[Spinal]

I was almost entirely unmoved by this. I can admire its basic proficiency and its technical accomplishments, but I did not care a lick. No notable characters. Nothing new to say.

Least favorite Nolan since Batman Begins.

[Grouchy]

I think it takes a special kind of skill to make a film with this premise this boring.

Regardless, I had no problems with the sound mixing. It's a technically accomplished film. It's just dramatically very inert except for the Mark Rylance storyline.

[Pop Trash]

I kept thinking about how Nolan named Robert Bresson as an influence, which seems strange for a big budget war movie, but I kinda get with the dramatic inertness people are mentioning. Bresson is also like that for me.

[[ETM]]

Caught this on IMAX today in Berlin. Such a wonderful, tense experience. My gut was in a knot the whole time. It could have done without the soundtrack, and I agree with some of the criticisms, but it's still mesmerizing on that huge screen with that sound. The theater was almost empty so my girlfriend sat a bit away, to where she thought she had a better view, but halfway through she came back to sit next to me because she couldn't stand the tension alone. :D

[Dead & Messed Up]

The score annoyed me because it provides artificial tension in place of actually taking the time to show what was happening on the perimeter and give an idea of what was bearing down on them. The film makes a calculated decision to turn to Hollywood artifice to generate the story momentum, leaving a lot of the interesting stuff behind.

I'd agree with this (also, I have my issues with Zimmer as a composer and how transparently he turns the knobs to game audiences).

Having said that, I found this an effective exercise in suspense, and it definitely solidifies that Nolan traded up when he moved from Pfister to Hoytema. This is maybe the best-shot film of Nolan's career, largely because so many of the images here rely on a sense of depth in the frame and sometimes even play between elements in the foreground and background. I almost wonder, though, if the better ending would've been to close on an image of Tom Hardy's plane slowly sinking toward the ground as a metaphor for life and death. With the whole theme of the film being about the idea of survival being enough in such a threatening circumstance (and therefore surviving in such a crazy world as ours is its own quiet brand of heroism, best exemplified by Rylance in-film), I found the final images of Hardy's plane approaching the ground to be graceful and poetic, by Nolan's standards. Ending it on one of his patented montages dampens that, although I liked that the film's final image was the curious face of the soldier, who might not be 100% convinced of the larger-than-life words he was just reading. That was a clever little touch.

[MVP is obviously Rylance, though, obviously.]

As for the framing device, I think it would've worked better if the film would've slowly led up to that sinking of the boat at the end and only shown it once, but at that point we were seeing it from all available angles. I don't think there's a way to make that work in the context of these specific stories, but I agree that seeing it a few times was more frustrating than revelatory. But I guess if you're Nolan, you gotta chase those narrative jumbles no matter what.

[Watashi]

Nolan finally forgoes his ongoing tropes (heavy exposition, twisty narrative, dead wives, overlong) and yet you people still complain.

I thought this was pretty terrific. I can see how someone would find themselves detached though. It's a rare anti-narrative war film where we never see the enemy or cling on to one specific soldier. It's rather bloodless, focusing on the spectacle rather than the horrors of war.

It's more of a thrill ride than a journey, and I like the audacity of Nolan's approach to creating a discombobulated feel of experiencing the suffocation of survival.

It's not really a performance-based film and there's no "Oscar" clip scene. I'm bummed I missed this on 70mm.

[Mal]

This movie briefly reminded me of Come and See. But Christopher Nolan could never make Come and See. He is too mechanical of a filmmaker to pull of anything beyond what he's doing here. And it really sucks because once upon a time I really liked Memento as a small town video store clerk and recommended it to anyone who knew who Carrie-Anne Moss was. This movie has it functions and it executes them perfectly, but so what? It's fine. :|

[Skitch]

I agree with Wats. I liked this.

[Irish]

I ... I also agree with Wats.

Biggest mistake of my movie-going year was skipping this on the big screen. I will never doubt Nolan again.

[[ETM]]

Biggest mistake of my movie-going year was skipping this on the big screen.

Only the second IMAX viewing for me ever, and such a good call it was, indeed...

Sent from my Mi A1 using Tapatalk

[Dukefrukem]

Not the best war movie and not the worst. Good not great. TENSE! Nolan did an excellent job making something the audience feel something by showing so little. The opening sequence of the men getting shot at in the street is an excellent example. The use of sound does plenty to paint a picture throughout, especially on the beach. Didn't see this on the big screen, but I wish I did.

The score is persistent, almost as if I'm watching a horror movie. It's constantly suggesting dread at any moment.

One of the weakest (or strongest) aspects of Dunkirk is the lack of story/structure. Yes we know about the historical significance of Dunkirk, but the film is jumping constantly between characters and viewpoints that does not allow the audience to cling to any specific event or hope. But maybe that's the point.

https://letterboxd.com/dukefrukem/list/nolans-best/detail/
1. Inception ★★★★★
2. The Dark Knight ★★★★★
3. Interstellar ★★★★★
4. The Prestige ★★★★★
5. Memento ★★★★½
6. Dunkirk ★★★★½
7. Batman Begins ★★★½
8. Insomnia ★★★½
9. The Dark Knight Rises ★★★½

[Thirdmango]

I hated this. The score absolutely killed me, it felt like the entire first season of 24. Just a constant dread sound and I'm really not into dread-porn as so many seem to be.

[Thirdmango]

Nolan finally forgoes his ongoing tropes (heavy exposition, twisty narrative, dead wives, overlong) and yet you people still complain.

It's more of a thrill ride than a journey, and I like the audacity of Nolan's approach to creating a discombobulated feel of experiencing the suffocation of survival.


Your first paragraph absolutely kills me. First off his ongoing trope of using music that goes BWAAA is not gone. And then an indignant "How dare you complain," is such a strange comment.

As for the other paragraph I will never understand how the feeling of suffocation is so enjoyable to people. How about a brilliant movie where you don't feel like you're going to die? That sounds like a much better movie.

[Thirdmango]

Nolan films ranked:

Memento: 4.5
Inception: 4.5
The Dark Knight Rises: 4
Batman Begins: 4
The Prestige: 3.5
The Dark Knight: 3
Dunkirk: 2.5

[Watashi]

Your first paragraph absolutely kills me. First off his ongoing trope of using music that goes BWAAA is not gone. And then an indignant "How dare you complain," is such a strange comment.

As for the other paragraph I will never understand how the feeling of suffocation is so enjoyable to people. How about a brilliant movie where you don't feel like you're going to die? That sounds like a much better movie.

Zimmer's score is much more subdued than his previous Nolan collaborations.

If you're not into impending dread, then you should probably not watch any war movies. There's dread. People are fearful about dying. Seems like a silly complaint for a film like this.

[Pop Trash]

If you're not into impending dread, then you should probably not watch any war movies. There's dread. People are fearful about dying. Seems like a silly complaint for a film like this.

Saving Private Ryan had guys getting shot in the head and limbs blown off so that really triggered me.

[Grouchy]

The only Nolan movie I hold dear to my heart is The Prestige. Among other things, I think it's because the themes are integrated into the narrative. In all the others, actors sit down and explain it to the dumb, useless audience.

Sure, Michael Caine opens the movie explaining how a magic trick works, but that's text. The subtext of the movie is about narrative and telling stories.

[Yxklyx]

Why was this written? It felt revisionist. The whole tone of the film is of a clusterfuck event but that's the entire opposite of what happened historically since Dunkirk was a major Allied strategic victory. Sure, all the events leading up to Dunkirk were messed up, he could have written a story about that if that's the tone he wanted. Anyone who has little knowledge of history will come away thinking that Dunkirk was a major screw-up when that's the exact opposite of what actually happened.

[[ETM]]

I don't think I agree at all. It was a major screw-up - the Allies put themselves into a terrible situation, and the Germans missed a huge opportunity to land a killing blow to the Allied effort, which will bite them in the ass later, come D-Day. The triumph of the evacuation wasn't clear until later, especially to those involved, which the movie goes out of the way to show in the end. The evacuated troops felt like failures.

[Yxklyx]

Mrs. Miniver came out in 1942 and covers some of these events as well and in that it's a glorious moment - and it doesn't feel like dishonest war propaganda. I trust the movie that came out just shortly thereafter.

[[ETM]]

...okay.

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[Grouchy]

I trust the movie that came out just shortly thereafter.
Why would you ever do that with an international war, though?

*writes down Mrs. Miniver in the unending list of movies to see*

[Mysterious Dude]

Mrs. Miniver was 100% war propaganda, whether it seemed to be or not. Movies that came out during the war the least trustworthy historical references.

[Grouchy]

Wikipedia seems to strongly support this.


Roosevelt ordered it rushed to the theaters for propaganda purposes.

In fact it appears that, like Foreign Correspondent, it's a movie mainly made with the goal of urging the US to enter WWII.

[Peng]

Rewatched this because it's leaving Netflix soon. Same score rating as on first watch, but I think I love it slightly more this time, where the intensity doesn't let up even when watched at home. Still stand by my first thought that I prefer Nolan in sprawling mode (even if Tenet kinda proves the exception now), which is why this is still my least favorite of his from last decade. Even then, one can make the case that it might be Nolan's most immaculately made and thought-out of last decade's works as well, nary a piece out of place, and easily his most gorgeous-looking film. Also love the note of faint ambiguity in the ending sequences; Tom Hardy being heroically taken away amidst the plane on fire seems aligned with the rousing nature of Churchill's speech, but then we cut to Fionn Whitehead, who just finished reading it, staring down at the newspaper with the blank expression of someone who can't really reconcile the words with the hell they've just been through. 8.5/10