Dunkirk
Director/Writer: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Harry Styles, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, and Fionn Whitehead
A review by Reed DeLuca
Dunkirk is a concussive, stressful two hours. We’re immersed in the film immediately. There’s no exposition, only gunfire on a nameless soldier as he tries to take a shit. He’s grabbed a couple leaflets, dropped by German planes: WE SURROUND YOU.
The music is a high whine, almost an air-raid siren. Hans Zimmer delivers on the Dunkirk score. The sound mixing is breathtaking in a I-think-I’m-going-to-pass-out-I’m-so-stressed kind of way. The score weaves in and around the silences of war, making room for the authentic sounds of British Spitfires and German Luftwaffes.
Dunkirk‘s war is total war. The men are largely anonymous. As viewers we’re dropped in media res and given none of the pieces. We don’t get them at any point, really. This intentional omission – the lack of personal – makes Dunkirk stand out in the canon of World War II films.
The dramatization of World War II has always followed the Spielberg formula: compelling, heartstring-tugging characters whose deep bonds and sense of love for each other keeps us watching, rapt. Dunkirk avoids this entirely.
Our soldiers feel anonymous; they all look the same, dark haired and white. They’re replaceable. Harry Styles stands out, with the most speaking lines. It’s an interesting casting choice, considering the film’s lack of exploration into the lives of the soldiers. The familiarity I have with him bonds me to his character instantly, in a way that’s different than the others. But even still – in the moments of struggle, such as in the Dutch boat, I have a hard time picking him out from the crowd.
The Royal Air Force pilots are anonymous in a different way, Tom Hardy’s character in particular. They spend most of the films in masks, with very little of their faces showing. Their voices are mangled and constricted by the radio static. At least half the shots in the plane sequences are devoted to the gun scope. Tom Hardy remarked in an interview, that his character matters less. The character is the Spitfire.
And the detail on the Spitfires is sharp, magnificent in accuracy. A fellow historian friend of mine remarked that it’s clear the Dunkirk team did their research. The sounds the planes made, the do-it-yourself seat armor, the slowness. The plane sequences take place over the course of an hour; it’s a two hour film. Yes, there are other scenes, cutting through them, but we feel the slow, desperate crawl of the clock. The almost painfully slow way the Spitfire turns, trying to catch the German bomber.
Dunkirk is an exhausting film. The detail in it is excruciating. We feel each hit, each gunshot. We feel the slow, crawling panic of being trapped – in the civilian ship; in the Dutch boat; on the beach; in the Spitfire; under the water. It’s visceral in a way very few war movies dare to be.
But there’s the other half of the emotional work Dunkirk does, and to understand it we have to understand something about British history and British culture.
As Dunkirk slowly released across the globe, the Twittersphere was awash with arguments between people – some crying “no spoilers!” and others crying “haven’t you ever had a history class?” Both of these people are perfectly valid in their knowledge and lack thereof. As a veteran of even an AP US History education, I can say I’d heard little mention of the Battle of Dunkirk until college. It’s just not a moment of national consciousness for the states and that makes sense. It happened before we had officially entered the war, across the Atlantic.
But to the British, it’s a moment of extreme national pride. The use of small, personal vessels captained and crewed by civilians is an incredible outpouring of nationalism, one that means something to British national identity. The term “Dunkirk Spirit” is still used when Brits talk about banding together in times of hardship.
And that’s something I struggle with, as a viewer of Dunkirk in 2017.
Nationalism both in America and Britain has lead to abhorrent, xenophobic legislation on both sides of the Atlantic. Brexit and Trump’s travel bans are only pieces of larger nationalist movements happening in both countries that are dangerous and deadly.
I understand the want to make a film about the human spirit. Movies about people – ordinary people – acting up in larger than life situations are powerful. And with the right glasses on, Dunkirk is one of those films.
But not to me. Dunkirk‘s story is that of British nationalism. It’s about British civilians going above and beyond for a country that colonized nearly the entire world over; had established and honed a violent empire that erased indigenous cultures. British nationalism, to me, isn’t something to celebrate. British Neo-Nazis murdered an MP last June. One in three terror suspects are white in the U.K.
2017 and the years leading up to it have been hard. We’re watching a global shift back to the politics of the 1890s. I completely empathize with the desire to make a film about people bonding together and overcoming insurmountable odds in the current political climate.
But I’m a historian. And I know history is filled with these moments. Moments that don’t rely on a nationalist bent, especially during the Second World War. We could have films about the Sobibór Uprising, wherein Jewish prisoners of war resisted and fought back against the SS and the guards of the Sobibór concentration camp. 300 people escaped. We could have films about the French resistance. The story of Agnès Humbert is particularly moving and we all know how well female-led movies sell.
Dunkirk was a staggering film and a major accomplishment for director Christopher Nolan, whose typical style is abandoned here for historical accuracy and immersive storytelling. But I don’t know if the message is something that can sit well with me.
The Verdict
See it, if only for the fact that the plane sequences are so good. Typically historical war movies handle their aerial battles with flash and speed, but not Dunkirk. These are real Spitfires and they resonate, deep in your chest.
