Dunkirk

Dunkirk, on the coastline of northern France, was a city surrounded by German troops, trapping 400,000 British soldiers from escaping back home. Winston Churchill was tasked with finding a way to rescue as many as he could without the use of military battleships which were being downed by enemy aircraftr. This led to the decision to call into service civilians with boats to cross the waters from England to Dunkirk and take aboard as many as they could. This plan was not without its own dangers, as enemy aircraft still patrolled the air, German soldiers were on land outside the city, and U-boats were in the water. What happened that fateful day has been dramatized in film before, but nothing quite like what Christopher Nolan did in 2017. His film, told in an unconventional style, tackles three different parts of this amazing story and does so over three different spans of time. Nolan thankfully tells us this at the introduction to each, giving us the setting and the amount of time each will span.

The first of these is Land (one week). This is from the perspective of the soldiers trapped in Dunkirk, awaiting rescue that may not come. Not even the Red Cross vessels are safe to depart. Our focal character here is Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), a British soldier who has lost his squadmates and has fled into Dunkirk, where thousands await evacuation, lined up on the beach. Tommy, and the many other soldiers trapped in Dunkirk, are under barrage from planes overhead while they wait, unknowing whether evacuation will ever show. 

The second story is Sea (one day). This one follows the civilian rescue mission as seen through the eyes of Dawson (Mark Rylance), his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney), and George Mills (Barry Keoghan), a teenage friend of Peter who joins them on an impulse. This story follows them as they cross the Dover Strait, encounter a stranded sailor along the way, and arrive at Dunkirk amidst a bombing attack that sets oil in the waters ablaze, threatening them and the soldiers swimming for their lives. 

The third and final story is Air (one hour). This one follows Farrier (Tom Hardy), a pilot who is dogfighting with the enemy to keep them from bombing the ships as they try to rescue soldiers at Dunkirk. Throughout the course of that one hour, many battles take place, and Farrier will face off against machine guns as well as his dwindling supply of fuel. His heroism will play a key role in the safety of so many soldiers during the civilian rescue. 

At first glance, the structure of three different timelines would seem like a gimmick, just another example of Christopher Nolan trying to avoid a conventional narrative. Perhaps there is some of that here, but it never feels gimmicky. In fact, were it not for the title cards calling out all of this, it might escape most viewers that there is a difference in the timelines of these three stories. Over the course of the plot, there are only a few short clues otherwise, such as brief glimpses of Cillian Murphy’s unnamed soldier on board a ship that has been attacked and is sinking. These scenes come after Dawson’s boat, Moonstone, has rescued Murphy from the waters. But Cillian Murphy’s scenes on board the sinking ship are very fleeting and could be easily missed amongst the calamity of hundreds of other soldiers desperately trying to survive. 

Farrier’s story is only an hour long, but it plays out practically in real time. As such, there are so many on-screen dog fights that it becomes hard to accept that all of this happened in just an hour. Yet it is plausible, assuming most of that hour was non-stop fighting. Christopher Nolan has a way of presenting scenes in a way that feels real while also just a touch hyperreal. The dogfighting feels raw and exciting, and the danger is palpable to the point that you get swept up in it, holding your breath as machine gun fire breaks out. Here, the sound mix really shows itself, ramping up sharply each time bullets pelt the planes. Nolan is known for using the sound mix in unique ways, and that is no exception here. He also has a penchant for muddling the dialogue channel, but fortunately, that is mostly absent in this one. 

This is an ensemble picture, and thus no one actor takes the lead. That being said, there are three standouts in the cast. Mark Rylance, who really came to prominence thanks to Steven Spielberg casting him in a number of high-profile films in the last ten years. Mark had been showing up in films since 1987 and on stage for well before that. I caught him originally in a 2008 production of The Other Boleyn Girl and, nearly a decade later, in the Spielberg-helmed Bridge of Spies. Since then, his popularity has been on the rise with several of his films being critical successes. 

In Dunkirk, he is only given a last name, Dawson, but he is the emotional backbone of his third of the film. He is the face of the civilian sailors who have been tasked by Winston Churchill to save as many lives as possible by sailing across the Dover Strait, right into the war zone, and rescue stranded soldiers. Their small boat won’t carry many and, compared to how many soldiers are at Dunkirk, it may seem insignificant, but it makes all the difference to those men who are saved. Dawson represents the sacrifices the civilians made for their boys. That sacrifice becomes personal for him and his son, though, when a soldier suffering from shell shock accidentally causes George Mills to be seriously injured. George, who wanted to prove he had something to contribute to the war effort, to prove he was a hero to those who never took him seriously, is the one who is seriously wounded while trying to do his duty for his country. 

Tom Hardy is the face of air warfare, although he isn’t the only one we see fighting for the British in the skies. He gets very little dialogue but conveys a lot just in his eyes, especially when often the lower half of his face is covered.  There is a sense throughout that his story will end with self-sacrifice and to a degree it does, though he doesn’t end the film killed-in-action. It does feel, though, that when he does finally run out of fuel he seems to be able to stay airborne well beyond what is believable. This is what I was talking about with the hyperrealism but it allows him to have one last heroic moment before being forced down.

Finally, we have Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh) who leads the men at Dunkirk and supervises the evacuation once the civilian ships arrive. His is the face of just how desperate a situation the soldiers are in. Like everyone else in this cast, he has little dialogue but can convey so much with just a look in his eyes. Branagh has been a staple in Christopher Nolan films of late and is a welcome presence here, especially when surrounded by so many unfamiliar faces. His piercing blue eyes easily separate him from those around him and reorient us to where we are whenever he is onscreen.  

While Dunkirk didn’t run away with the awards come Oscar time, it did win in some key categories. I have already mentioned the sound mix, and it won for both of the sound categories. The sole remaining win it received was for the editing. It is a tricky thing to tell all of these intertwining stories with different timelines and settings and edit it together in such a way that it not only makes sense but it feels cohesive. Editor Lee Smith, who was Nolan’s go-to editor up till this point, assembled this picture. This is a purely masterful job that allows for cohesion without sacrificing tension or orientation. There is so much going on and moments that happen later in the film that are tied into things that happened earlier in a different part of the story that would be way too easy to get confusing. Watching Dunkirk, there is never a time when it gets confusing, and a large part of that is the work Lee Smith has done here. 

Dunkirk feels like a companion piece to the Joe Wright-helmed Darkest Hour. That film told the political machinations that were going on during this time, including the planning that led to the rescues at Dunkirk. Dunkirk, the film, tells the other side, ignoring, for the most part, what was going on back in Britain. In this way, these films, made by two very different directors, fit together well. They both competed for the Best Picture Oscar in the same year, too, but neither ended up winning. Some would say the film that did win that year, Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, shouldn’t have won it all. That film, a dark romance between a mute woman and a sea monster akin to the Gill Man, has its fans, myself included, but doesn’t have the emotional heft and the historical significance of the one-two punch of Darkest Hour and Dunkirk.

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan

Best Director: Christopher Nolan

Best Cinematography: Hoyte van Hoytema

Best Film Editing: Lee Smith (won)

Best Original Score: Hans Zimmer

Best Production Design: Nathan Crowley and Gary Fettis

Best Sound Editing: Richard King and Alex Gibson (won)

Best Sound Mixing: Gregg Landaker, Gary A. Rizzo, and Mark Weingarten (won)

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Release Date: July 21, 2017

Running Time: 106 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Starring: Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard, James D’Arcy, Barry Keoghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, and Tom Hardy

Directed by Christopher Nolan