I recently watched the movie Dunkirk, directed by Christopher Nolan, which is a movie based on events that occurred during WWII. While this movie does fall into the “war” genre of movies this movie is barely a war movie, or at least not a typical war movie. Such a distinction from the norm seems somewhat risky but it gives this movie a unique edge. I subjectively believe the most distinct difference between a typical war movie and Dunkirk is the lack of glory nor triumph. In a typical war movie, such as Glory, you expect the protagonists to either defeat the antagonists or valiantly die trying to do so. In Dunkirk, we witness wounded and demoralized Allied forces trying to evacuate the French beach of Dunkirk to England across the English Channel. Axis powers continued to surround them on all sides on land and they also possessed submarines, powerful naval ships, and airplanes. All of these Axis military assets began picking off allied ships which were trying to make it back to England. The British Prime Minister refuses to allocate more resources to these troops as he wants to save them in case of an invasion of the British mainland. In the end, the troops are rescued, not by British government just brave citizens who wish to help each other. Because the protagonist does not win nor does he die valiantly makes this movie less like a “war” movie and more like a survival story. Objectively, this was definitely a risk from a director’s point of view however, subjectively, I believe that this payed off at making this movie stand out.
Another choice that the director chose that makes this a unique movie is that it is told from 3 different perspectives: air, land and sea. From an objective standpoint this allowed the audience to get a better overall view of the occurings and they could receive a more full view. (See video)Subjectively, while I still enjoyed this element it made it confusing at some points in the movie because they each perspective used different time scales for example the land perspective was one week out, the sea perspective was one day out and the air perspective was one hour out. At some points in the movie, when switching it becomes confusing as to how all these three perspectives fit together on a timeline. Despite this, the 3 different timelines culminate to make a great finale when they all meet.
Even though objectively this movie was fantastic, subjectively I can say it was pretty good. Like any movie it has its shortcomings and Dunkirk was no exception some things that I wasn’t very fond of are as follows. In the movie dialogue was sparse, which is not necessarily a bad thing however it made a some moments dry. In the end of the movie George dies not by enemy forces but merely on accident which I felt was unnecessary and underwhelming. Also the problem with the French soldier is never developed nor concluded merely mentioned. I felt that this conflict could have been further investigated and was underwhelming. Overall, I would definitely recommend this movie to anybody who wishes to watch an exciting adventure movie.
This video is Nolan’s explanation of the three timelines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taP8ZzAKDus
I think you’ve selected a really interesting clip because you’re dealing more with the development of the film than that final product itself. It’s certainly helpful in terms of your evaluation of the film (both confusing in its tri-headed monster of a narrative, but also satisfying). I think we actually miss the subjective more than anything else here. We get a sense that it is well made, and we get a sense that there are moments and choices that you didn’t really enjoy, but for the most part the movie is fantastic. Consider how you can give us a better sense of what your subjective experience was like (esp. Re: expectations, circumstances, etc.).
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