Demands to be seen on the big screen

Rating: 8/10 (19 July 2017)

Nolan delivers! I have never been that familiar with the whole WWII Dunkirk situation, which is something my brother (the war expert) wasn't very happy about. But, it's fair to say that I now understand what went down. You know how you usually get a lot of set ups or exposition before the action starts in war films? Well, here they throw that away and we open right in the middle of the entire evacuation crisis. The good thing is that I was almost immediately immersed by it. The story is told through three different perspectives; The soldiers on the beach, the people on the boats and the airplane pilots. All of the story-lines are well done. I cared for what was going on and I could feel the despair from everyone. There's not much dialogue which was refreshing because here there's room for the visual narrative to shine.
I think my favorite perspective was from the pilots. You feel like you are up in the air with them and all of the wide shots of them flying were breathtaking. Hoyte van Hoytema's cinematography is fantastic. The open sea setting was also great. I could almost smell the salt water. The spectacle and scope is off the charts in this film. It's not a character study, but more of an experience of putting you in the shoes of the people during the incident. Nolan succeeded in making everything look authentic because I did not notice any CGI. So, I believed that what I saw on screen was real. The best thing I can probably say is that I forgot people were acting or that the explosions were fake and so on. If someone says they didn't get much out of it, then I can understand. It doesn't give you a lot backstory or a specific main character to root for. We are basically presented with a glimpse of what happened in the lives of all of those people during the Dunkirk evacuation. We don't follow them before or after. And I don't think it was needed in this one. Sometimes it's better to leave that up to the imagination. Just the look on the people's faces was enough for me to understand them. The one complaint I can think of is that the music started sounding too much like a horror movie score at times. I get that war is horrific and all, but it got too on the nose and overplayed here and there. I would have preferred it to be more toned down.
See it on the big screen, because the photography is executed so well it demands to be seen the right way. Also, be on the lookout for the Michael Caine cameo.