CLOCKWORK DUNKIRK / Film magician Christopher Nolan tells the harrowing World War II story code-named Operation Dynamo by crisscrossing the Architecture of Place & Time . . .

Rating: 8/10 (29 July 2017)

1. If you haven't seen DUNKIRK, don't read this. And if you have seen DUNKIRK, go see it again. Ideally, 70mm film (not digital), 2.20:1 widescreen.
Because DUNKIRK presents far more than a thrilling visceral spectacle and dramatic reenactment of an historical event. This movie must be seen twice--at least twice--to fully grasp its clockwork architecture.
2. For screenwriter and director Christopher Nolan, Cinema is Art--a grand creative chess game costarring Form and Story. On the rectangular chessboard of the silver screen, the White Knight of Form and the Black Knight of Story (my terms) engage in collaborative "conflict"--"the basis of every art," as Sergei Eisenstein said in Film Form (1949).
Nolan knows, A movie is a game, and a game has rules. And in DUNKIRK, a Bobby Fischer level expression of the Chess Game of Art, Nolan plays by very special rules.
3. My second viewing confirmed things I saw the first time about Nolan's One Word Theme: Time. (And sidekick, Place.) And revealed far more I didn't see.
Time serves as Nolan's OWT throughout his work--for example, MEMENTO and INTERSTELLAR. Specifically, Story Time. Which in DUNKIRK, Nolan elastically shapes, bends, staggers, previews, rewinds, fast forwards, accelerates, and compresses . . . through his RASHOMON-like artistic filter . . . most obviously conveyed by showing us the downed British pilot's water landing twice.
Think about it. Nolan shows us that water landing twice!
4. Through titles, Nolan posts the Place & Time structure of his story up front. Events on the Mole (Land) take place over a week. On the Sea, in a day. In the Air, in an hour--virtually real time relative to the duration of the movie. Slow Land and faster Sea take place in the Past relative to fastest-of-all Air, which takes place in the Present--the Future relative to Land and Sea--until one fateful moment.
My second viewing revealed methodical nothing-is-random telling and retelling of key scenes as the Past of Land and Sea catch up with the Present of Air. Land and Sea time moves faster and faster, compression accelerating, to the second act climax when BAM, KABOOM . . . the German bomber (Villain) goes down. Conflagration ensues (signaling False Victory), the Moonstone rescues Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) . . . and action rebuilds until Land and Sea and Air intersect, EXPLODE, for one split second into a synchronized convergent Present of cheers at the end of the second act . . . when the three Place & Time Zones crisscross into a reversal, Sea and Land moving forward into the Present and Future . . . and Air gliding into the Past. All Place & Time lead to that crucial climactic Moment . . . when just when he thinks they're safe, startled--the Villain rising to strike one last time--Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh) closes his eyes, resigned to their devastating fate . . . and the frame starts to go white . . . then suddenly, this False Defeat turns to Victory as the last German fighter plane gets shot down.
5. On first viewing, how could we know, Follow the Moonstone--captained by Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance)--which first-time viewers will unlikely spot in the frame of Nolan's first unspooling of the plane's water landing. How could we know, Follow the trawler--the beached bullet-riddled fishing boat--that we see sinking long before we see the soldiers climb into it. But on second viewing, we can see more clearly Nolan's magic act, his sleight of hand, his deft design, simultaneously concealed and revealed, of the Architecture of Place & Time.
6. The stunning Hans Zimmer score and the sound design reinforce Nolan's exacting choreography of Time. Listen for the tick tick. And watch how many times characters look at their watches, including British pilot Farrier (Tom Hardy), who checks his watch and chalks the time on his control panel to calculate how long his fuel will last.
See how beautifully Nolan edits the film at the end, collating the frames of Hoyte van Hoytema's breathtaking cinematography so that the slow peaceful heroic descent of the airplane onto the beach--when Air and Land and Sea again poetically merge--parallels the same slowing down, the same timing, of the train with our mole. (Nolan plays on the meaning of mole, threading our stand in, Tommy, through the story from beginning to end, seen from the back in the first frame and from the front in the last frame. Mole in a figurative sense: The mole is our spy, one of the main ways we get inside the story. He spies for us.)
7. I need a third watch to unravel Nolan's Möbius strip moves. When does Farrier shoot down that last fighter? Does he loop back after he glides by Bolton? Or does Nolan pull a MEMENTO, showing the sequence backward-because Farrier shot the fighter down before gliding by? A riddle signaling how Nolan ups the complexity of his artistic chess game of Form & Story at this dramatic moment. Not only crisscrossing Time and Place . . . but also Direction and Space.
8. Yes, a movie is a game, and a game has rules--rules that the magic of movies can sustain, bend, and break that the Place & Time-bound reality of life can't.
But at the same time, the Form & Story art of DUNKIRK presents a creative demonstration of the scientific truth of the relativity of Space and Time.
And Observation.
Nolan riffs on Akira Kurosawa's RASHOMON (1950), gathering witnesses inside and outside the story, summoning us to witness the film's deep structure as we sort out what's happening . . . where . . . and when.
9. My Silver Knight Rating of DUNKIRK:
White Knight (Form): 8.5
Black Knight (Story): 7.5
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Silver Knight (Form & Story): 8
8 Cameras
(I explain my Silver Knight Rating system in my IMDb commentary on ARRIVAL.)
© copyright 2017 by JEF7REY HILDNER