Nolan most stunning piece of work yet.

Rating: 9/10 (22 July 2017)

I am a great fan of war movies, from BRIDGE ON THE RIVE KWAI to THE DIRTY DOZEN to PATTON to APOCALYPSE NOW to FULL METAL JACKET; they rate high on my list of all time favorites. Now, I can add one more to the list, Christopher Nolan's DUNKIRK. It is a modern epic that tells a story of heroism and sacrifice 75 in the past that puts the viewer on an intimate level with the participants, making one truly feel as if we are right there on the beach, on the sea, and in the air.
More than that, DUNKIRK is a truly marvelous piece of film making; it is pure cinema, where music, sound effects, staging, cinematography and acting (wordless in many scenes) all come together to make a near perfect whole. It is storytelling basic and simple, there is no contrived plot or melodrama, for none is necessary, history has given Nolan all he needed and he makes the most of it, and then some. The story unfolds in a non linear fashion, as we follow three separate groups of characters: soldiers on the beach, desperate to escape the approaching Germans and get back to England; a small boat captain, his son, and a teen age friend who take off from a port in Britain to help rescue the stranded soldiers: and a pair of fighter pilots high in the sky over them all, whose job it is to hold back the German bombers from strafing the beaches with machine gun fire and sinking the naval destroyers attempting to evacuate the British army. One story takes place over a week, another over a day, while another over a single hour, as the movie cuts back and forth between each one. When I first read about this "non linear" storytelling, I was a little apprehensive, thinking that Nolan was trying something artsy when just plain straight forward would do just as well. My fears were utterly groundless, as all three stories come together at the end; I should have trusted in Nolan all along, for his directing master's touch pulls it off.
I must also commend Nolan for trusting the audience to know something about history before they go to the theater; there is only one bit of dialogue that can be described as exposition. We do not get a recount of the German blitz or the collapse of the French and Belgium armies that resulted in the British being forced to retreat until its back was against the English Channel, neither Hitler nor Churchill appear, their name hardly mentioned. In the first scene, we are thrown right into the action when we meet a squad of retreating soldiers, from their beaten manner, we don't have to see the battle they have just been through. We know it has been horrible from their body language alone.
The acting, by Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Fionn Whitehead, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, and Harry Styles is exceptional, as they have to do most of it not with the delivery of dialogue, but with facial expressions, especially the eyes, through which they express their fear and worry. A couple of performances are nearly wordless, especially in the case of Aneurin Bernard as Gibson; ultimately we learn the heart breaking reason why he does not speak. Also unforgettable is Barry Keoghan, as George, the boy who goes along with Rylance's small boat captain because he wants to do something memorable.
The real star of the movie is Hans Zimmer's musical score, which perfectly punctuates the action on the screen. Nolan himself wrote the screenplay, a masterpiece of building tension until it becomes nearly unbearable. He throws his characters into one desperate situation after another, as they struggle to survive; more than that, Nolan truly captures the terror of a world where death is all around and can claim anyone at any moment, a place where carnage is a constant. Where a torpedo can send a destroyer filled with rescued soldiers drinking warm tea to the bottom; where a lone survivor sits atop the hull of sunken ship in the middle of the Channel; where infantry men hiding inside the hull of a beached boat suddenly become the victims of German target practice; where a malfunctioning fuel gauge decides who will live and who will die and who will fight another day.
Lately, discussions of history seem to be nothing more than an argument over racism, oppression and misogyny. DUNKIRK reminds us that the freedom to have such arguments was purchased by the sacrifice and heroism of ordinary people, determined to persevere against great odds and do the right thing no matter what the obstacle in their way. Thank you, Christopher Nolan, for making DUNKIRK, and reminding us all.