I came out of this film with no nails left to bite

Rating: 10/10 (26 July 2017)

I would prescribe that anyone going to see Dunkirk bring with them 1) a defibrillator 2) strong anti perspirant 3) a stiff drink for afterwards. (Oh and some tissues for the end when Elgar accosts your already tattered emotions!)
Going into this film I was emotionally under-prepared for such a fiercely evocative experience! The film is an immediate sensory explosion and has your heart beating at an alarming rate pretty much within the first 5 minutes. When I came out of the cinema I had bite marks in my knuckle and here's the magic formula for how you put exhilarating and slightly cruel levels of tension on your audience. First off the music has a constant ticking beat which seems to slowly become more frantic as the film progresses. Han Zimmer manages also to interweave an almost mechanical quality into the score which ramps up the tension especially when there is large scale damage. The quality of the ambient sound and shots made me feel scarily involved in the unrelenting Dunkirk conditions. The shots were so wide and dynamic it felt at times like virtual reality. There are three different stories that cleverly interweave as the film progresses; Land, Sea and Air. Land is explored over the course of a week, the sea explored over a day and Air over the course of an hour. As the stories weave together you are often pulled between three different perilous scenarios. I love how Nolan play's with around with time lines in his films and I thought it was a very original concept to have three different time frames in one film.
Dunkirk did an impressive job of capturing the immensity of the damage as we experience ships being torpedoed and sinking from various terrifying angles and perspectives. In amongst these large scale sequences though the film also hones in well on the micro moments. There where some beautiful facial reactions that expressed real depth of emotion without the need of dialogue. I think the film had an interesting presentation because as Christopher Nolan said in an interview he wanted the whole story to be very present tense and there was no focus on backstory. Some people disliked this approach to character presentation but I thought it worked well for the film that everything was happening in the moment. There are some very breathtaking sky shots in this film and when the planes where diving I can say I felt on the cusp of queasy. Definitely catch this film on a huge screen with an all guns blazing sound system as you will feel the bombs and music in your seat! A fantastic film and a very emotional ending (bring tissues or at the very least a porous sleeve)