So I saw Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, and it was pretty great!
Dunkirk more like dumb jerk. Oh! Ruined! Ouch! Got em!
The film was essentially several stories showing different perspectives on the battle of Dunkirk during the Second World War.
Each of these stories had their own unique themes and challenges, and in my opinion
they were all equally engaging and entertaining to watch. From the beginning of the film the entire
feel and tone is very noticeable and well presented.
There's an immediate sense of tension brought forward with the score by Hans Zimmer, the fast paced rhythmic clock ticking create a sense of urgency
that stays with you for the duration of the entire film. And not only does the film's score help deliver the tension,
but it's really serving as the glue that holds the entire film together.
Because of the abstract order in which the scenes and stories are told from this film,
this is a movie that wouldn't really work very well without this score.
I make no exaggeration when I say this film is literally structureless.
It's incredibly repetitive and generally the same tone throughout the entire film, mind you what we're being shown is still amazing,
but we're essentially being shown a lot of the same thing over and over and somehow it still works. The score is so incredibly
successful at what it does that despite the film's repetition and lack of structure,
it's very difficult for this film to lose your attention. Now as for the bizarre order that the story was told in, I'm failing to
understand exactly why that was the case. Each of the stories moved forward chronologically,
but jumping back and forth in between different stories made the chronology jump all over the place. The stories themselves were so incredibly well
executed that I could very much see myself enjoying them being told one at a time.
You know like a multi-story film that has different chapters. And like I said the film as it is still definitely works
but without the score holding it all together
I'm not sure that would be the case. A film like Memento has plenty of purpose being told in the order that it's presented in
but with Dunkirk I guess I'm just a little confused. If anything
it helps make this film much more unique, and it really does feel like its own movie rather than something
that's just trying to be like Saving Private Ryan.
So despite me being a little confused about why the film was presented this way
I can't really complain all that much. I can however complain a little bit about the PG-13 rating, not the classification itself
but ultimately what the film had to be in order to get that rating. There's obviously no shortage of tension and fear in the film whether
there's blood and gore or not,
but if you're going to make a PG-13
war film, then maybe it's best that you leave the implied carnage to be either distant or off-screen and left up to your interpretation.
You can't just drop a bomb onto a packed group of dozens of people and have nothing but dirt fly up. I'm sorry.
Explosives don't just kill people
because it makes them sleepy or something- it blows their fucking limbs off. If you don't want to show that type of thing in your
movie to keep a PG-13 rating that's fine,
so just don't show it instead of showing a nerfed version of it.
It is at this point that I'm realizing Christopher Nolan hasn't made an R-rated film since
2002, and to his credit I haven't noticed this until just now. There's really nothing in his other
PG-13 rated films that makes me feel as though
they would have benefited from having an R rating,
but with Dunkirk especially as a war film I kind of wish there wasn't that
sugarcoating. That being said there were only a couple scenes where this aspect was even
noticeable so despite me feeling the need to talk about it
it didn't really way too heavily into my experience. None of my issues with the film stopped it from being absolutely
fantastic. The Spitfire scenes with Tom Hardy were possibly the best and most realistically
presented fighter aircraft scenes out of any movie ever, and despite not explicitly showing anything particularly graphic
there are many disturbing situations and scenarios in the film that are incredibly effective at provoking emotion. All of the performances were
fantastic and last but not least Christopher Nolan's use of real location and practical effects really added to the film. From a purely visual
standpoint this film is pretty *mwah!*
This is a beautifully shot and very well directed fast paced action war drama,
and it's one that I'm looking forward to seeing again a second time and I'm giving this one an 8 out of 10.