Nolan's WWII Masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (23 July 2017)

Christopher Nolan has a backlog of major cinematographic successes, with Dunkirk, he keeps true to his winning streak with a novel, engaging take on the famous WW2 Dunkirk escape from the perspective of the allied forces.
The film takes on the stance of the classical 'Jaws' suspense that we all know. The edge-of-seat anticipation comes from above rather than below: the bombing runs of the axis on allied naval transits brimming with soldiers is a recipe for sheer suspense - Nolan brilliantly capitalized on this unique situation of fragility.
Nolan uses the silver-screen era motif of silence, a powerful tool that brings the audience out of distracting dialogue, and into raw, unhindered audiovisual emotion. The film uses dialogue sparingly, it gives emphasis to no single character, the theme is that everyone is expendable in the face of the looming threat at hand, this works brilliantly and really punctuates the saying 'we're all in the same boat together'
The ranks and regimentation subsides, and we see these men as humans rather than statistical cannon fodder, Nolan makes sure to show us their ravenous hunger, their shell-shocked gazes, and all the trimmings of the brutal wartime circumstance.
While we see so much of the allies, at no one point do we truly see the enemy, we never see the face of the opposition, their threat is elusive and untraceable in that sense; the great sense of unknowing, imposing danger - instead the audience is well and truly embedded in one side of the situation, we are not omniscient spectators, but rather another face among the many - the audience is involved here.
The film follows a very nonlinear structure to complement this sense of unknowing, Nolan teases the audience with the idea of safety, only to rip it away from us soon after, this matches the Dunkirk situation brilliantly - we can never settle throughout, there is never truly an end in sight.
All in all, this captivating entry to the WW2 sphere of film making is a mature, well thought-out and intricately mastered piece of film, an experience not to miss.