DUNKIRK
One of the
most unusual films now playing at a theater near you somehow manages to be
something of a blockbuster without actually being a blockbuster, if that makes
any sense. Without any costumed
superheroes, acrobatic stunt work, or magical special effects, Dunkirk achieves the sort of power and
excitement usually associated with all those summer spectaculars. A movie without a hero that proceeds in some
unusual manipulations of time and space, that in truth deals with a devastating
defeat, it in effect violates all the traditional rules of summer films; in
addition, it is an intelligent piece of work, which further differentiates it
from Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man,
Wonder Woman, Transformers, or any of the other overproduced, expensive trivia
that clogs and shakes the cinemas these days.
The film’s frequent and ironic reversal
of expectations differentiates it from the usual coverage of the famous
evacuation of a thoroughly defeated British army at Dunkirk in 1940. It begins, for example, with an act of
cowardice that defines the unnamed character (called Tommy, a traditional
generic term for English soldiers, in the credits), played by Fionn
Whitehead. He flees a skirmish with German
soldiers, eventually discarding his rifle, his helmet, his pack, and, together
with another sly and equally cowardly soldier, rolls a wounded man onto a
stretcher in order to cheat their way onto one of the crowded boats leaving the
beach. Shifting back and forth in time
and space throughout, the picture moves to England, barely thirty miles across
the Channel from Dunkirk, where a civilian named Dawson (Mark Rylance) decides
to take his own boat to France, just before the army commandeers it. The third thread of the coverage concentrates
on Farrier (Tom Hardy), a Spitfire pilot leading two other airplanes in support
of the nearly 400,000 men on the beach.
Other ironies proliferate,
including the death of a brave young volunteer in a tragic blunder, a rescued
airman who resists rescue, and the welcome at home of one of the shirkers as a
hero. Christopher Nolan, the writer and
director, bravely refuses to glamorize the material, which actually constitutes
a highly unusual achievement, the telling of an epic story without melodrama or
even an epic hero; the undeniable heroism lies in the daring actions of all the
ordinary civilians who rescued the stranded troops after the rout in France, a
rare kind of communal courage at work. The
great story of Dunkirk, of course, involves that immense flotilla of civilian
craft that sailed across the Channel to rescue the stranded soldiers, turning
one of the greatest military defeats in British history into something of a
victory. Since the water at the beach was
too shallow to accommodate most naval ships, smaller vessels were necessary, so
pleasure yachts, sailboats, ferries, tugboats, etc. accomplished one of the
most unusual rescue missions in history.
The film shows the chaos on the beach, the desperation of the soldiers,
and the amazing efforts of the rescuers in constant transitions, moving from
the beach to the evacuees, to the boats, to the Spitfires, to the commanding
officers dealing with the danger and chaos of the retreat and the departure.
The purely visual methods of the director allow the camera in effect to tell the story, so that the sparse dialogue is hardly necessary. The camera swoops and scans, comprehending the nonlinear plot, showing various points of view, making Dunkirk a kind of super version of a silent film, really a triumph of the art. Unlike most films that win the sort of excess that constitutes the stock in trade of reviewers, Dunkirk deserves all the praise it has received.
The purely visual methods of the director allow the camera in effect to tell the story, so that the sparse dialogue is hardly necessary. The camera swoops and scans, comprehending the nonlinear plot, showing various points of view, making Dunkirk a kind of super version of a silent film, really a triumph of the art. Unlike most films that win the sort of excess that constitutes the stock in trade of reviewers, Dunkirk deserves all the praise it has received.
