Over time, Christopher Nolan's career evolved from modest art films (Memento, Following) to bombastic blockbusters (The Dark Knight, Inception, etc.) evincing little of his earlier finesse. Dunkirk (2017), his latest film, mates the unconventional structuring of the former with the latter's expansive spectacle. The result is remarkable, a war movie both bracingly immediate and artistically accomplished - the best of its genre in years.In a bold structure, Dunkirk marries three parallel story lines centering on the Dunkirk evacuation early in World War II, a gargantuan effort to withdraw 400,000 British troops from France to England under heavy German attack. "The Mole" follows soldiers Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) and Alex (Harry Styles) over a week as they await rescue. The second plot, "The Sea," unfolds over the course of a day, centering on Mr. Dawson's (Mark Rylance) efforts to sail his yacht across the English Channel to rescue the British Army. The third, "The Air," shows an eventful hour for three Spitfire pilots led by Farrier (Tom Hardy) providing air cover for the evacuation.
Following a brief title card, Dunkirk immediately throws viewers into a maelstrom of combat and chaos, a tone it sustains throughout its 106 minute run time. Nolan eschews war movie conventions, lacking the stage-setting strategy sessions of epics or the camaraderie of unit pictures (Tommy's unit, indeed, is massacred in the opening scene). A few scenes with a Naval commander (Kenneth Branagh) overseeing the invasion that provide broad strokes of exposition, but this device (and dialog generally) is pared to a bare minimum, emphasizing the moment-by-moment terror through nail-biting set pieces. We receive no greater understanding of logistics than the men on the ground, who couldn't care less about anything beyond survival.
Dunkirk seems the apotheosis of Saving Private Ryan's ultra-realism, despite lacking graphic violence. Nolan immerses us in a numbing, crashing soundscape that registers as much as Hoyte van Hotema's photography, which ranges from docudrama functional to eerily beautiful (particularly the shots of Dunkirk burning at dusk and ships slowly losing power and sinking into the sea). The minimalist dialogue's swallowed by explosions and gunfire, the groaning of ships' hulls and the shriek of diving Stukas, the screams of men drowned, strafed and roasted by bombs and oil slicks. Hans Zimmer's score provides a propulsive underpinning, mixing subtle percussion and strings with a persistent ticking motif enhancing the suspense.
This realism makes Dunkirk's tricky timeline all the more impressive: the three story lines don't intersect until the end, flashing back and forth between different points in time as their protagonists' tales unfold. Hence Dawson and his sons pluck a shell-shocked soldier (Cillian Murphy) out of the water in broad daylight, immediately between scenes of Tommy and Alex's nocturnal travails on a doomed minesweeper. It's to Nolan's immense credit that this device works, keeping us engrossed in each plot line without sacrificing coherence or investment.
Nolan makes smart casting decisions, throwing newcomers like Fionn Whitehead and singer Harry Styles alongside character actors whose mere presence gives their roles heft. We barely see Tom Hardy's face in the cockpit, yet we're instantly invested in his character: Hardy plays the role with no-nonsense professionalism unleavened by cockiness or posturing. Similarly, Kenneth Branagh and James D'Arcy's harried officers manage to keep their segments of the story grounded. Mark Rylance fares even better, his simple, unshakable determination to do his bit endearingly credible.
After an hour and forty minutes of violent chaos bordering on abstraction, Dunkirk settles into a more conventional finale: the soldiers return home to rapturous applause, Alex reads a Churchill speech over a Longest Day-style crane shot of Farrier overflying the beach, affirming that everyone's sacrifices haven't been in vain (while acknowledging that it's merely a band-aid on a catastrophic campaign). Still, if ever a movie has earned a victory lap it's Dunkirk, so unlike your average war picture that it's instantly unforgettable. Take a bow, Mr. Nolan.
