Christopher Nolan's latest film, Dunkirk, is a movie of contradictions. Within the expansive, epic frames of Dunkirk's beaches, humans seem miniscule, like ants; yet the movie's intertwined stories are small and personal. It is a movie set in World War II, no stranger to epics of heroism and victory, yet it is atypical as far as these epics go: it is based on a "colossal military disaster," a military evacuation by cornered Allied forces during the Battle of France.
In this movie, Nolan plays with time like he has with his earlier movies like Interstellar, Inception and Memento. The film's three narratives take place over different stretches of time, but eventually intertwine near the end.
Each story is engaging and immersive - helped by impressive technical filmmaking - that collectively helps the audience get into the moment. Dunkirk is all about the moment, and it can almost feel like a tone poem at times. And though its stories are smaller-scale, personal tales of survival, we barely get to know these characters. I can probably identify only one or two characters by name. These stories disappear into the crowd, perhaps communicating the fact that true stories of war are seldom individualized, instead they are formed by a crowd of combatants reacting to the war around them. The enemy is even more mysterious. There isn't a single swastika seen, and they are referred to simply as "The Enemy." They exist out of frame, manifesting as gunshots out of nowhere, planes from high above, faceless and amorphous. Their anonymity may perhaps be a reflection of how those soldiers at Dunkirk viewed the enemy, adding more weight to the entire immersive experience.
Dunkirk is a story of survival, a story of humanity and hope amidst almost total despair. It's a unique take on the WWII epic and an impressive technical and cinematic feat.
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