Strives successfully for grimly realistic portrayal of war, but still leaves "the Dunkirk Spirit" strengthened

Rating: 9/10 (29 July 2017)

We watched Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk" as maybe the only Brits in a cinema in a country for which consequences and memories of "the War" are different. For them this was another WW2 depiction, for us an examination, not just of the reality of war, but also of a British legend, and Britishness itself. There were fewer tears in surrounding eyes than in mine.
For "Dunkirk" is indeed a moving experience, but also - rightly - a powerful, shocking one - so much so that I felt moist eyes might give way to a full-scale blub even 10 minutes on from the credits.
Few films achieve such a two-level emotional impact.
"Dunkirk" is epic in spite of itself, but this is no "The Longest Day". But then the latter was portraying an advance towards victory, while Dunkirk was - as Churchill noted - a severe defeat - and equipment-less retreat - that made any subsequent victory look far less plausible. In the film, we are reminded of the toughly correct decision to hold back some ships and planes ... in anticipation of the next blow.
Yet - again unavoidably - Nolan's presentation captures the spontaneous (and hyper-British) emergence of feelings of pride and joy and relief at being reunited, in some sense "safe" with "our boys" on our beautiful and (comparatively) tranquil island once again. The end segments of the film are done perfectly - all is understated, entirely unjingoistic, deeply affecting as a visceral solidarity suffuses us, even as the returnees themselves feel unsure of themselves.
The main body of "Dunkirk" resembles that ending in being "of few words", as Nolan intended, but also differs. Patriotism is pared down, nuanced, mostly down to vaguely "running commentary"-like remarks from Sir Mark Rylance in his role as a captain of one of those little ships, "Mr Dawson" - as based on a figure whose taped voice lives on at the Imperial War Museum. While a 1930s boat is filmed, it WAS NOT a Dunkirk participant, though other shown vessels WERE.
Dawson's voyage crystallises the "sea" component of a "land, sea and air" configuration that Nolan deploys, to hint at what the British Army was doing on land, the RAF in the air, and the Royal Navy plus other craft (800 in all, with up to 60 apparently portrayed in the film) on those 25-odd miles of sea separating a Bosch-like vision of hell from "home".
We are warned at the outset that these stories run to different time-frames, but enigmatic information given so soon will probably go unabsorbed by most. In fact, the RAF chunk actually (faithfully) reflects a 1-hour mission, while Dawson is taking a day to cross the Channel, and the lads are at Dunkirk for a week...
This "separation by elements" at least might seem clear-cut, but is not, as the different media and forces keep interacting, with this just adding to the sense of fluidity ... and chaos. Nowhere is really safe; water might seem better than an exposed beach, but is cold, can even burn and can fill a cosy dry place in seconds; bullets enter boats stuck on land; ships and soldiers fire at planes; planes strafe ships and soldiers; planes come down on sea or land; soldiers walk into water, come back out and then wade in again...
Given the nearly-340,000 rescued in real life, as set against the few thousands that died, Nolan's film might seems a bit death-obsessed; but what we see - perhaps more than in any other war film - is how random choices, attempts to "beat the system", just being in the wrong place, can mean death, while others live on in chance fashion.
As the above sentence hints, plenty of less-than-noble behaviour is shown. There's some Army-Navy solidarity, but we also watch ratings abandon ship while soldiers are stuck below. There is also Army-Airforce resentment ("Where were you?", asks a young soldier - well the RAF had indeed been there (flying 2739 fighter sorties over 9 days), and the film makes their risks and sacrifices clear - with real planes used in the film-making; and history tells that 106 of those precious assets were lost (to 262 enemy aircraft)). There is even tension between soldiers of different units, as well as an incident in which a panicked soldier (accidentally) kills a civilian, etc.
A counterbalance here is Sir Kenneth Branagh's mostly cool and gritty "Commander Bolton" character, alluding to real-life hero James Clouston - a Canadian-born RN Officer and "Pier-Master", who indeed spent days on "the Mole". Hopefully, the Branagh portrayal also pays homage to Clouston's boss, Capt. Tennant, who patrolled the beach with his megaphone for days (and perhaps even to the great Admiral Ramsay, in overall charge of the Naval operation then, as also at D Day). Notwithstanding "the Little Ships", Dunkirk was a Royal Navy show, God bless it...
Indeed, one is overall swept up by a growing wonder at Operation Dynamo, in spite of the many smaller-scale ugly incidents depicted. The desperation, lack of thought, inability to see the big picture and sheer fear that overcome young and often inexperienced military personnel at the given moment are made clear, and we in our comfortable cinema seats must be ready to forgive. Cleverly, the Rylance character (for noble enough reasons) also consciously overlooks misconduct he's seen, in order to start building the Dunkirk legend.
And, even if we do know how selfishly and crudely certain individuals behaved at given moments, doesn't that merely offer enrichment in terms of truth and reality?
Hence Nolan's great achievement with "Dunkirk" would seem to be to offer realism of setting and equipment and behaviour in his vignettes, to shock and move us more than ever before with the manmade debacle that was Dunkirk; and yet to leave us more convinced than ever as to the manmade miracle.