The Thin Line of Survival

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2017)

400'000 British soldiers trapped on a beach in France, and only one way out. The premise is simple, stripped down and could've have turned into an exploitive, melodramatic war-movie, but instead shows us with great skill the bitter truths of battle.
It does take some nerve to conceive and execute a high-profile movie for the summer season, that owes so much more to the films of Terrence Malick, Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky than the world of franchises that we are exposed to of late.
Christopher Nolan sticks, literally, to his guns when it comes to taking his commercial clout into the uncharted waters and sands of Dunkirk beach. By refusing to stay with conventional narratives or a single point-of-view he immerses the viewer into a level of emotional turmoil that makes us willing participants and helpless observers at the same time.
Nolan's latest endeavor speaks volumes of his directorial talents, and he puts his often unnamed characters into the impossible world of cruel choices. Tom Hardy, Harry Styles, Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance and Cilian Murphy are familiar faces (Hardy once again spends most of his screen-time behind a mask), but they are merely spokes in the wheel of war, where up means life and down certain death.
The battle and the evacuation of Dunkirk are considered to be some of the Second World War's most disastrous moments for the Allied Forces. Nolan uses the event as a catalyst to show how noble, savage, contradictory and hopeful people remain in the face of death.
Aided and it seems sometimes guided by cameraman Hoyt van Hoytema, production designer Nathan Crowley, editor Lee Smith and composer Hans Zimmer at his most avant- guard, we experience Nolan on top of his game, and during certain sequences as brilliant as never before. And even though certain scenes fall somewhat short and may hinder the general momentum of the film, the overall impression remains strong.
Not least because Nolan leaves us to our own devices. Like the aforementioned filmmakers, who strove to confront and move the audience without merely pandering to their most obvious desires.
After almost twenty years of filmmaking it is fair to say that Nolan belongs into the highest echelons of modern directors. That his choice of material continually eludes easy categorization will add not only to his reputation but to his growth as a storyteller.