Ticks off most 'war-movie' boxes, without shedding a single drop of blood! [+81%]

Rating: 8/10 (21 July 2017)

Two names apart from Christopher Nolan seem to have stuck with me after watching 'Dunkirk'.. Hans Zimmer (composer) and Hoyte Van Hoytema (cinematographer). Both these men rise to the occasion and furnish impeccable work for 'Dunkirk'. If the viewer gets a feeling of being right there on war-ground with the lead characters, due credit needs to go to Hoytema and Zimmer. 'Dunkirk boasts of a pulsating soundtrack coupled with mind-bending cinematography.
While character development and dialogue are almost non-existent, Nolan takes the viewer on a journey that delineates the dire essence of war by putting higher emphasis on the aesthetics. When ships sink dime a dozen and fighter planes drop bombs like cows poop dung, one is left to imagine how war can turn out to be persistently brutal. The film is told from three different perspectives..land, sea and air. Episodes taking place at different timelines eventually mesh into each other owing to some smart writing by Nolan and editing by Lee Smith. A crop of well-known faces such as Fionn Whitehead, Harry Styles, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh and Tom Hardy play some of the more significant characters.
Nolan's choices of wide-angled shots are something for every big- budget film-maker to conduct research on. The struggles of warfare and evacuation are depicted as jarringly as they can get..soldiers being welcomed into a ship with a warm blanket and jam toast only to find themselves gasping for breath a moment later when a torpedo hits, men who hide inside a boat waiting for the tides to get rougher only to find themselves under constant threat of being shot at, young soldiers covered in an oil-spill feeling aghast at the thought of being set on fire via air-strike..there are absolutely zero compromises made.
The final act is pure masterstroke. The tension is upheld by Zimmer's 4/4 beat, speaking a language of its own. The action in the air is viciously exciting but gets sort of repetitive later on. It should also be noted that the film's biggest star Tom Hardy wears an oxygen mask almost 90% of his screen-time (Bane, Mad Max and now this! Surprising? NOT!). Nolan's adept writing also points fingers at the fact that the affairs of war are perennial in nature - heavy sighs are often followed by loud screams of joy, followed by even heavier sighs; humiliation followed by jubilation in a cycle of crests and troughs.
'Dunkirk' is a perfect example on how to make an audience- enthralling war film without rendering physical carnage and bloodshed. The horrors of war can be seen heavily in the eyes of the men at Dunkirk, and that suffices.
Verdict: Excellent, but definitely not Nolan's best!