Very suspenseful and LOUD war melodrama..

Rating: 7/10 (12 August 2017)

Released after such gems as 'Weed end at Zuydcoote' and 'Atonement' – to name only two classics of the same genre --, Christopher Nolan's 'Dunkirk' is quite good as a very suspenseful war melodrama, with EXTREMELY loud sounds of machine guns, bombs and torpedoes, etc. – stressed by a thumping, and a sometimes ticking 'music' – if it could be called that !
According to actor-director Kenneth Branagh (who plays a Commander in the movie), roughly thirty veteran Dunkirk survivors, who were in their mid nineties, attended the premiere in London. When asked about the film, they felt that it accurately captured the event but that the soundtrack was louder than the actual bombardment.
The above being said, I have never felt before, in any other war movie, as totally plunged, immersed, involved by the predicaments of soldiers surrounded by enemies – and facing annihilation or capture.
Maybe I could deplore the lack of any 'personal' involvement with the dozen or so recognizable characters – as we know almost nothing about them. Maybe that was intentional to show the 'depersonalisation' that war imposes on fighting men ?
Most of the photography is absolutely amazingly beautiful. Not so about the scenes filmed at close range : the use of deep focus lenses would have been most profitable.
The fragmentation of the movie in three 'time-frames' – and cutting abruptly from day scenes to night scenes may be unsettling until you grasp the reason behind it. Sometimes, these cuts occur in the middle of a scene only to be continued later on.
Is the very ambitious Mr. Christopher Nolan, 47, striving to be 'original' or 'innovating' at all costs ? What's certain – as he said it himself – is that he wants his movies to be very, very popular.
He seems to be succeeding.... Next ?