A story to be seen more than once

Rating: 9/10 (24 July 2017)

Chris Nolan is more than a storyteller; he's a myth-maker. He wants you to experience the Truth of a story – to enter the fabric of a tale and have your perspective altered. To enter the story multiple times and see nuances you hadn't previously seen on prior viewings and have your paradigm shifted again and again with each telling of the myth. He creates a world and asks the viewer to experience the situation, to see what is right before them and engage with that experience, to grapple with the pain, loss, joy, and above all, the Unknown. He expresses his vision, not by providing a bunch of facts and figures or details and extensive dialogue, but through action and rest, through the messy chaos that is life and war, through seeing and feeling the actors' nonverbal communication – to get inside their skin as best we can from our comfortable seats in an air conditioned space. And the actors give us everything we need – from Mr. Dawson's compassion which he has obviously passed on to his son Peter as well as his NEED to go try to save the pilot and Peter's look of understanding, to Tommy's naiveté, weariness, and gentle realism which contrasts with Alex's cocksureness and underlying fear and desperation to Gibson's outright fear and insecurity, but dogged determination. George reminds us what it is like to be on the cusp of life, innocent and hopeful, even though we haven't had any gold stars by our names in the past. Farrier and Collins provide a glimpse of the vagaries of flight and how one "carries on" despite the overwhelming circumstances a pilot faces. The shivering soldier reminds us that normal people's minds can break when faced with the horrors of war. Tom Hardy can do more with his eyes and Kenneth Brannagh with a smile than poets can express in sonnets.
And like all myths, Dunkirk can simply be seen as a story, to be liked or disliked, or as Story to be unpacked time after time, allowing ourselves to be engaged and changed with each recitation.