Two movies in one: first half = WAR, second half = PROPAGANDA

Rating: 8/10 (23 July 2017)

I came to see this movie with very low expectations after Inception and Interstellar, those in my opinion are amazingly good in the visual and technical areas, but a disaster character and plot wise. Did i like this movie?

Short answer: Yes!

Long answer: I will divide the review between the two halves of the movie.

The first hour of the movie is one of the best movies of the year. In here one of Nolan's most criticized defect, sketchy character definition, its, in my opinion, something that help the narration in order to immerse the viewer in the historical event the movie is about, the Dunkirk evacuation disaster of the WW2. War has no characters, the people that fight and die in the fields of Belgium and France in the WW2 are just regular, faceless people, in here, the less we know about the characters, the better, since we can empathize with them as if we were living that same experience. And that is one of the major wins of this movie, the first hour of this movie is one action scene after the other, chained, without time to rest or just breath, of what it feels like real war. We cannot see the enemy, the battle is already lost, there is no escape, there are no friends or heroes, people are just fighting to survive. The message is clear: War manufacture just survivors and misery. Nolan master direction here, action is tense, the music fits just perfect (those accelerates heartbeats helps us to feel the stress of the soldiers) and we can feel the pessimism on all the futility escape attempts. It kind of feels like Kubrick's 'Full metal jacket', the message is clear, there are no heroes, war is the perfect terrain where the human misery flourishes. I watch this movie in 70mm and DTS audio, and i must say, this is one of the most impressive experiences of the year, you are just right there on the beach.
The rest of the movie, when the rescue mission is assembled and put on practice. I know this is an historical event so there aren't real spoilers, but i don't want to write anything about the plot. The first half show us how the war produces survivors, but in this part it tries to convince us that war also produces heroes. I cannot agree with that, heroes are manufactured by humans, those are propaganda product to drive the moral up, those who appear in the newspapers or the radio speeches as heroes are just people that tried to survive using any questionable or immoral method in hand. This part of the movie just feels like a generic Michael Bay movie, we have a bunch of heroes that will crush the enemy due their sacrifice and heroism. It is not fitting with the first part of the movie, and the script is quite fragile in order to justify the heroism of the characters.
In general the movie is worthy and is one of the best works of Nolan. Just for the first hour, go to the theater and enjoy.