A densely woven triumph.

Rating: 10/10 (26 July 2017)

I've only seen three films twice during their theatrical release. First was Star Wars. The second was Serenity. The third obvious given that it was me who brought the subject up, but after seeing many reviews, I felt I had to see this projected in IMax.
Recent war films have tended to fall into "war porn", over- sentimental mush or, in the case of 'Saving Private Ryan', both. That's not necessarily a bad thing as modern audiences, in the main isolated from the actualité of war, do seem to need a hook to get engaged and going for the obvious tropes to shortcut the process doesn't harm a film as long as it is well made.
In this respect, much of the criticism levelled at Dunkirk seems centred on the lack of characters' back story. Counter-intuitively this, I believe, is this film's major strength. I totally buy Nolan's premise that he didn't want to give the audience any more information than the protagonists have. The only exposition comes from Kenneth Branagh's character, but this is used sparingly and no more than is required to advance the story.
I also wonder whether the fact that Nolan's army protagonist is named Tommy has been missed by non-British critics - 'Tommy' being the nickname given to the rank and file infantryman of the British Army, or as Commando comics would put it: "For you Tommy, the war is over." It reinforces the idea that Nolan was creating ciphers for the audience to place themselves into and wonder: "what would I do?"
One overlooked detail is that whether Mole, Sea or Air, our every- man protagonists make major either/or decisions which have crucial bearing on the plot. I won't detail them here as I don't want to introduce any spoilers, but it pulls together the idea that an individual caught up in a moment will make split second decisions, which on their own perhaps mean nothing, but when chained together can alter history. I liked that. It made the split time-line narrative all the more powerful, as any one of these decisions reversed would have doomed the film's outcome.
It's been gratifying to see US audiences embrace this "British movie (with) an America budget", as Nolan put it. Hopefully it will mean that major studios will see that there is a market for intelligent big budget summer block-busters, made with care.
Can't leave this without mentioning Hans Zimmer's score. It is such a phenomenal soundscape.
And if I'm being honest, I think I preferred the wide-screen version!