Dunkirk

Rating: 7/10 (12 September 2019)

For those that doubt the value of strong directors, I present: Dunkirk.
Dunkirk is a war movie that is less about fighting and more about surviving. And after just watching it, that's about all the detail I've got.
Unlike a typical Nolan film, Dunkirk doesn't seem to have interwoven plots within plots. It's basically just a war movie with a different perspective and that's not a bad thing. The plot is straight forward and the characters... I couldn't list a single one of their names right now for the life of me. Which is a bit of a problem because I don't find myself overly connecting with any of them.
What it lacks in story though, it makes up for in the AV department. It looks wonderful, Nolan really has an eye for camerawork and framing that is hard to argue with. His decision to keep switching the aspect ratio up, adding and removing those 'widescreen' black bars, throughout the film was clearly purposeful but I found it distracting.
The sound. Oh my lord the sound. I can't think of any other movie I've seen where the sound has impacted me so. It's not even the score, it's the effects. When a fighter passes overhead, I felt it. When a rifle fired, I could swear I felt the recoil. I don't know how he did it, but it was remarkable.
Unfortunately, all the technical achievements don't completely make up for the 'meh' plot.