Outstanding on many levels & with a more radical narrative structure than "Pulp Fiction" has...

Rating: 10/10 (2 August 2017)

It's a film about one historical event, covered with three 'short stories', which are told from three distinct POVs, each processing on a different timeline with a different 'time compression' rate...
Sounds strange? It is, but it works.
You won't even notice most of the time, that there is something odd about the storytelling until you suddenly understand it.
Not even "Pulp Fiction" - which was a similar collection of three linked short stories told out of chronological order - dared to go as far in terms of experimental representation of time.
The main reason it works is, I think, that the audience is used to see 'time compression' strategies in movies all the time and has learned to accept them: Storytelling is simply the art of the ellipsis. Very, very rarely we see movies in 'real time'. Even rarer are movies which use different 'time compressions' next to each other to tell the story. It's so rare, that only Michael Haneke's "Code Unknown" (2000) comes to my mind. But "Dunkirk" goes even further - it's the first movie I've ever seen that combines three distinct 'time compression' rates with three distinct POVs.
The miracle is, that it doesn't feel forced like a formalist experiment, but it all comes together naturally through the event itself: a) A Spitfire's time in the air was only about an hour. b) Crossing the channel by boat and going back home took a day. c) The soldiers waiting on the beach of Dunkirk to get home took sometimes a full week.
All these POV's have a different time line or time cycle and Nolan decided to represent that through his storytelling. The rules are established quickly at the beginning.
Nolan compresses the time for each perspective differently, with the 'spitfire in the air' storyline being more-or-less in 'real time'. The three story lines/perspectives seem to have a similar running time in the film, but they cover and represent three timelines of very different length. All POV's cross each other at some point in the film, so there is at least some common part of all three timelines, where they overlap. It totally works and feels more organic to the story than in "Pulp Fiction", where it was more of a 'meta device' to make the pulpy content more interesting.
The screenplay is a masterpiece: One suspense sequence after another, people facing impossible choices at a propulsive, terrifying pace, not a wasted minute, every line of dialogue counts. Nolan is a master at misleading the expectations of the audience and then surprising them with something totally unexpected.
The writing is so TIGHT and the story offers so many surprises, that you'll see a different movie the second time, because you'll see scenes and characters with different eyes than before. The characters are nuanced and complex: People who seem to be 'heroes' suddenly are cowards or crazies, the terror of war shows anyone what he's truly made of and everyone makes the terrifying experience that he's willing to compromise his humanism to save his own life. It's a surprisingly dark film, that won't make you feel too good about humanity.
It avoids most clichés successfully. It feels different than any other war film. It's an epic that avoids everything you expect from an 'epic historical film', including a long running time, and makes it feel like you are there.
"Dunkirk" is much closer to films like the Hungarian Oscar winner "Son of Saul" and the Russian classic "Come and See", than to any war film Hollywood has ever produced.
I saw "Dunkirk" 3 times now and every time I discovered something new and it became an even stronger experience. Most complaints I read about the movie don't hold up to scrutiny and it's close to perfect.
"Dunkirk" will win Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Directing, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Music, Best Sound and Best Sound Mixing.
I hope they'll build a giant 70mm IMAX cinema and play it forever.
PS: Just in case you'll miss it - Yes, at the beginning it's suggested that the soldier wipes his ass with the "You are surrounded" leaflets. So, there's some good humor in "Dunkirk", too.