Dunkirk review

 Number 617 on the 2024 list of the top 1000 films of all time is Christopher Nolan's war film.

Dunkirk tells the true-life story of the real evacuation of Dunkirk during World War II. The story is told from the three perspectives of land, sea and air. It features a large ensemble cast including Fionn Whitehead, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy and Harry Styles.

Christopher Nolan is well-known for his complicated sic convoluted films. From Memento to Interstellar, he loves a good plot twist. Yet what struck me so about Dunkirk was its apparent simplicity. I say "apparent" because Nolan doesn't do simple. However, Dunkirk showed a restraint and calculated hesitation that you don't often see in Nolan films. It helped that Dunkirk was only 100 minutes meaning Nolan had to direct everything as tightly as possible. He certainly did that.

In making Dunkirk, Nolan wanted to tell a WW2 story that focussed on survival and NOT heroism. This wasn't your Saving Private Ryan with grandiose tales about larger than life men. It was a stripped-back tale of men struggling to survive one of the biggest blunders of World War Two. This gave the film a startling amount of realism and authenticity. While there were plenty of emotionally heavy moments, they never once ventured into sentimentality. Cheesy speeches gave way to minimal dialogue.

And when I say stripped-back, I'm of course just talking narratively. Dunkirk had the usual terrific production value we would expect from a Nolan film. Everything from the special effects to the costumes and the props only added to the genuine feel of the film. Even the music was at a reasonable volume. Nolan's sound mixing is often off with Hans Zimmer score blasting over the dialogue. This wasn't the case here. The sound track pulsed along subtly in the background adding to the film without drawing attention to itself. It's no surprise this film won Best Sound Mixing and Editing Oscars.

Alas there were no acting Oscars, but it was an ensemble cast so this shouldn't be a surprise. All the cast were great in their different ways with all of them portraying everyday men pushed to the extreme. There was Mark Rylance and Barry Keoghan playing civillians helping the war effort any way they could, the always great Cillian Murphy as a shell-shocked soldier and Tom Hardy as a heroic RAF pilot. 

But Fionn Whitehead and Harry Styles were the surprise packages. Whitehead was a complete unknown actor while Harry Styles is, of course, best known as a singer - Dunkirk was both their debut film roles. Yet both of them were very good. We saw how the desperation of their situation pushed both characters to the absolute limits.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dunkirk. Nolan is a great director, but not when he is making complicated film with endless plot twists. His strength is taking real human moments and making them shine. That's where he succeeded with Dunkirk.