‘Dunkirk’ Is A Monument To The Men Who Made Our World Possible | Film Review

History, as we understand it, is simply a connected series of moments in time.  Some of those moments have great notoriety and little historical impact (O.J. Simpson comes to mind), while others are of enormous significance yet fade into the mist of history with little fanfare. With Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan attempts to shine a spotlight on one of the most pivotal – and least recognized – events of World War Two.

In Late May and early June of 1940, the British, French, and Canadian armies that were sent to resist the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany had been soundly routed and pushed back to the beaches of the English Channel at Dunkirk, France.  The 400,000 or so troops trapped on this beach represented the bulk of Britain’s remaining fighting forces.  Her army surrounded with its back to the sea, Britain had two options: see their army captured and surrender, as a nation, to the Nazis (effectively ending the war in Europe with a total Nazi victory), or attempt a nearly impossible rescue of many thousands of men using anything even remotely resembling a boat that they could scrape together from the coastal towns of Britain.  Churchill chose the latter and, at the end of a week-long harrowing delaying battle (fought mostly by the French), Britain’s (and part of France’s) army was saved.

Dunkirk tells the story of this evacuation from three different points of view: a nameless soldier trapped on the beach, a British civilian and his two sons crossing the channel in their private yacht to participate in the rescue, and an RAF Spitfire pilot sent to protect the flotilla and the men on the beaches. The three stories are told simultaneously but using differing time scales (the stories take place over the course of one week, one day, and one hour respectively), yet all three are interwoven throughout the entirety of the movie.  I found this method of storytelling to work quite well, but to viewers without prior knowledge of the event (I’m something of a geeky history nut) this could have been distracting at best, and confusing as hell at worst.  I personally found this style to be compelling as it highlighted the vastly different experience of each individual involved based on what their role in the event was.

One of the more fascinating aspects of how this movie is presented is that there really is no plot.  This is a movie about a moment in time where the event IS the story.  Only one of the ensemble cast’s characters is even identified by name.  Rather than tell a personal story within the larger context of WWII (like Saving Private Ryan or other similar films), this movie is simply a snapshot of a truly horrific circumstance shared by hundreds of thousands of men.  The characters we DO follow represent everyone on that beach.  Their trials and efforts to simply survive were likely mirrored and shared thousands of times over.  By not naming the characters, Nolan lends more importance to the event itself, rather than the characters experiencing it.

The performances in this movie are solid.  Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy are the most recognizable faces in an ensemble cast that does a nearly perfect job of portraying their respective roles.  Murphy, again, demonstrates his outstanding ability to convey emotion, even when given an absolute minimum of dialogue.  His portrayal of a shell-shocked (read PTSD) soldier picked up off a shipwreck in the Channel is absolutely heartbreaking.  I would dearly love to see more leading roles thrown this actor’s way.

Cinematically, this movie is stunning.  Nolan has left his fingerprints all over it.  While I don’t believe the film will earn (or deserve) a Best Picture nomination, I can easily see a Best Director nomination in Nolan’s future. The attention to detail, especially in the aerial combat sequences, is simply amazing.  The camera angles, cuts, and Hans Zimmer’s score all combine to build tension throughout the movie.  More than almost any war movie I have ever seen, this film conveys the true awfulness and hopelessness of being caught up in the absolute horror of war.

I would dearly love to recommend Dunkirk for every moviegoer, but I recognize that it isn’t for everyone.  For each person like me who loved it, where will be another who found it confusing and boring (due to the lack of an organized, linear plotline).  I WILL say that this movie should be required viewing in every World History class in the country.  The world we live in today was made possible by the event depicted in this movie.  It is no stretch or exaggeration to say that Europe would have fallen to – and still be controlled by – Nazi Germany had this evacuation not been successful.  Every victory for the allies that followed was made possible by the evacuation of Dunkirk.  I believe that Nolan recognizes that, and this movie is his monument to those men who made our world possible.  War is hell, and Nolan wanted to remind us that we owe a great debt to those who endured hell so the rest of us don’t have to.

“We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of victory. Wars are not won by retreats.” (Winston Churchill, following the evacuation of Dunkirk).  No, they aren’t.  But sometimes civilizations are saved by them.