Dunkirk
Back in 1915, David Wark Griffith made silent epics that helped to define the language and syntax of cinema. He himself claimed to have invented the close-up and scenes with restrained emotion, but his main contribution was actually the concept of parallel editing: the capacity to cut between separate narratives in order to extend the dramatic tension of an overall film.
And despite the fact that Griffith figured this out more than 100 years ago, Nolan seems to have missed a few essential steps to achieving potency with this technique. While I appreciate the attempt, cross-cutting between actors that have not been thoroughly established does not achieve the desired effect. We cycle back and forth between the fighter pilot (played by Tom Hardy), men on the beach trying to evacuate, and a “civilian” rescue boat on its way to Dunkirk to pick up soldiers.
But the transitions between each narrative are arbitrary, cutting on action that is ill-motivated to get us to the next perspective. Sometimes, the effect would produce an amnesic shaking of the head as you entered the new scene, other times it would be aggravatingly disjointed. I suppose these abrupt shifts could have been used to great effect in conveying the harshness of the soldiers’ experiences, except they were too inconsistent to be intentional.
There were plenty of things I liked, especially the costume design and their authenticity to maintaining the look and feel of the water and air craft. And there were a few scenes I found genuinely moving, such as the way the men treat the body of one particular character when he dies. It was familiar and delicate, and it helped connect you to these men struggling to save themselves and their comrades.
The natural tone and colour of the cinematography was also great, although I disagree with the notion that it was worth a 70mm viewing – it actually did little both to contributing to the story and their framing did not take full advantage of the format. You look a movie like “Lawrence of Arabia,” and it becomes obvious what the power of 70mm can do. While some people may have had a more immersive experience, that’s incumbent upon a number of conditions – least of which means sitting in a spot where it’s conducive to a large-format viewing.
Don’t get me wrong, the film was still tense, and I think most people had that experience watching it. But there was this obnoxious attempt to manipulate one’s subconscious that was distracting to the point of irritation. Namely, they played with a ticking stopwatch effect to the point where it went past being pedantic and just felt stupid and contrived. In being noticeable, it detracts from the true impact; it resembled the overwhelming violin you often hear in the “emotional” scenes of Spielberg films, letting the music do the heavy lifting instead of the narrative context.
And since we’re on about the narrative, there really wasn’t much. It felt like one logistical obstacle over another, without any regard to personal, individual investment. I liked the fact that they mostly used lesser known actors, but the narrative arc only superficially touched upon an event that is chock full of incredible details.
The events of Dunkirk are truly fantastic, and are not popularly revisited in history classes, and yet Nolan merely condenses the entire, nearly insurmountable obstacle into a five-minute verbal exchange between the executive brass. I mean, imagine watching Werner Herzog’s “Fitzcarraldo” without the perspective of Kinski’s character, whereby the movie is simply about pushing a boat over a mountain. You’d easily lose interest. …I lost interest.
Strangely enough, a YouTuber recut the film down to 8 minutes and made it a silent film, and it works! Compressing the action made it far more interesting, which begs the question, does Nolan’s interpretation of the story warrant a feature film? I say no, even though the actual story could easily fill that time slot. Check out the recut silent film here:
Should you go see this film? Eh. Is the 70mm amazing? Eh. Is it a tense and action-packed movie, one that’s hydrophobic as fuck? Sure, but while there is a lot I like about this movie, it felt too disordered to recommend. I neither liked nor disliked it, and I think that is a dangerous place to be for any art.
I have little opinion about it, but am only writing this review in contrast to a more capable film I saw earlier in the day called “Fires on the Plain,” for which I will soon write a review. Where that film actually shocked me, especially for its 1959 content, Nolan’s film merely watered down (quite literally) events that were fascinating in their own right.
Comments: I actually think Lee did a fantastic job cutting together each scene; a less capable editor would have cut too quickly with the large format, and it would have felt rushed. My critique is solely with the STRUCTURE, not the style of the editing. Unfortunately, our brains have not evolved commensurate with the technology, and I meant to make that distinction – between visual trends and the foundations of establishing clarity for transference of information.
Even though there are plenty of “modern” techniques exist in older films – such as Abel Gance’s editing style – they evolve over time; however, the way we perceive clarity of information by way of media is somewhat universal: you can alter the presentation and the tempo and the style, but the core process in how we collect and logically form conclusions follows a particular format unique to the human experience.
Different from the old Masters, Nolan’s choices to cut back to the different narratives does not feel chaotic, but simply arbitrary and it lacks a GEOMETRIC cohesion. Scholars and essayists can point out specific spots in, let’s say “Intolerance,” where the action demands a break and a shift to another perspective – both visually and thematically, according to the anchor of film. The event of Dunkirk was the anchor here, and the relationship between land, air, and sea did not gel in any way that seemed intentional or by design.
I mean, it is what it is, but I don’t typically think of him as a lazy filmmaker – and it just feels a bit lazy. Reminds me of Tony Zhou’s analysis of John Sturges’s commentary of “Meanwhile, back at the ranch….” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GXv2C7vwX0