Dunkirk (2017)
Review of Dunkirk (2017), directed by Christopher Nolan
I don’t know what compelled me to end up watching Dunkirk. Perhaps it was because it was at the top banner of my Netflix, and it has been five years since the movie was released.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching too many Harry Styles music videos lately—and, to be clear, I’m not really a fan of his. He just has good music, that’s all. I don’t do fandoms. But on a rainy Sunday afternoon, I pressed play, sat back in my computer chair, and ended up watching Dunkirk because why not?
It seems fitting now, looking back, that I watched this right before going to Hawai’i for the first time.
I’m an American, so our relics of World War II are only really on the island of Oahu—you can visit the ship graveyard and memorial residing above the wreckage of the USS Arizona. We did end up going to Pearl Harbor on our trip, but I think Americans often forget how horrible the war was on the other side of the war, especially in Asia and Europe.
I could go on and on about this topic, but, instead, let’s get into the review, shall we?
Dunkirk is a movie rooted in both ambiance and historical events.
Christopher Nolan came out with Dunkirk in 2017, and when it came out, I heard that it was so triggering for veterans to actually go and watch this movie because of the sound effects and what happens on the screen.
As one can infer from the previous comments I made about the film, it’s set during the evacuation of the town of Dunkirk, which is on the English shore, during World War II. The movie takes itself to all aspects of the war, as we get soldier perspectives from the land, sea, and air.
Dunkirk can be a bit confusing to follow at times due to the lack of dialogue, so if you’re not paying attention closely enough, like I was during my initial screening, you’re going to miss something important. What I missed was the fact that the one man had stolen the identity of another soldier.
He had taken on the identity of the fallen soldier when he was French, not British, so he could evacuate with the British troops. His story and the civilian kid who ends up accidentally killed are the most threads in this for me—they represent the hidden costs of war.
Too often we depict soldiers as these emotionless cogs in the machine of war, but the soldier breaking free of that narrative and showing the lengths he’s taking to try and escape humanizes him so much more to me. He was trying to escape one fate in France, but found himself succumbing to another in what he thought was his golden ticket out. And that’s the tragedy of war in this case: it is completely and utterly unpredictable.
He may be shamed for what he has done, but, at the end of the day, he was just another scared little boy trying to find a way to survive in this cruel world.
The civilian boy whose killed on the boat also is a direct representation of the heroic efforts of the civilians that tried to help those on Dunkirk. I found his death particularly significant because nothing actually happens on the boat that goes to rescue the soldiers in the water—he’s killed by a loose wire, aka the soldier who shoved him down the steps.
This an accidental murder by one of his own, but it was still unintentional. That soldier may have never actually fought or killed someone in the war up until that point, so that’s why they try to hide the boy’s death. To prevent further trauma. But you can only hide so much on a small boat, especially when everyone is getting up to leave and move on with their lives as much as they can.
What makes Dunkirk particularly interesting is that it is largely stripped of dialogue. Without human voices to lead the way, people are often driven to the point of insanity in isolation.
But in the scenario of war, where we have nothing but suffering and companionship in other people who are also very traumatized, you become hyper alert of every single noise that passes by. That’s what makes the silence of Dunkirk particularly eerie; your heart wants to hammer its way out of your chest when something that vaguely sounds similar to a bomb goes off.
However, because of the lack of dialogue, I found the film to be very difficult to watch. This is very much up to the particular viewer coming into this movie experience, but I skewer more towards films where I can get to know the characters and understand what led them to this point.
And perhaps that is the point of Dunkirk; to throw a bunch of strangers together, and, by horrific design, they’ll become lifelong friends if they survive. What do you talk about in the face of fatal danger? I understand the decision for no dialogue, as it really forces you hone in on the stage they’ve set, but many of these soldiers truly do become unknown soldiers by choosing this.
Overall Thoughts
Dunkirk is a good film. I will not deny that, and if you’re a fan of war films, this definitely is one you should have on your list. Hans Zimmer, like the musical genius he is, did an incredible job on the soundtrack and I think there is a very good reason the movie took home both of the sound awards at the Oscars that year.
I do think, however, that the movie relies too much on the dramatic tension created by the scenario, making it a war film at its essence but unappealing to someone potentially going to see the movie on a Friday night.
Rating: 4/5
