Hi guys it's Debbie and today I can finally speak about "Dunkirk", a film
created by my favourite director, Christopher Nolan, a movie I have been
eagerly waiting to watch for over a year. "Dunkirk" is based on real events which
took place during the Second World War in the English channel, so the stretch of
water between Great Britain and France. In particular the film focuses on the town
of Dunkerque in France, in which hundreds of thousands of English and French
soldiers were stuck, surrounded by the enemy. The film opens with the soldiers
trying to get back to England through the only possible route which is the sea,
but their resources are extremely limited, the boats are scarce and have to
take the soldiers on board from a dilapidated mole, in atrocious weather
conditions. And the enemy could attack at any given moment, both from fighter
planes above their heads as well as sudden offences from ground or sea. The
film gives us the story of this desperate evacuation from Dunkerque from
three different points of view: the first is that of the soldiers in France trying
to get back home. The main characters that we follow in this section are Tommy
and his fellow fighters Alex and Gibson. The three (as many others) desperately try
to set off at sea but are repeatedly set back by the enemy. Protecting them from
above is the Royal Air Force, which represents the second point of view in
the film. The main character in this section is Farrier, portrayed by Tom Hardy,
alongside his fellow pilots. Their job is to try and keep the sky clear from
German attacks on the soldiers and boats below. The third point of view is represented
by all the civilians which set off from England on their own private small boats
on a mission to help the stranded soldiers on the other side of the
channel. The main boat that we follow is that of Mr. Dawson, which sets off with
his son and another teenage friend. They are fully aware that their mission
is extremely dangerous but are brave and determined to reach out and help the
army. Before watching "Dunkirk" I convinced myself to not appreciate the film just
because Christopher Nolan is my favourite director, because other films are some of
my favourites, I tried to not be influenced by these factors. I wanted to go in and
have a completely new opinion about the film. And turns out, I absolutely loved
"Dunkirk"! I personally think it's one of the best films of 2017, I still have to
find a flaw in it and it again proves that Christopher Nolan is able to
create masterpieces in every genre. His films have covered a wide-spread
variety of topics such as interstellar travel, analysis of dreams, murder and
investigation, magic and illusion, the world of Batman, memory loss and now he
has successfully covered the war movie genre. Although as it often happens
with his films, the story is not just limited to the typical distinctive
features of one single genre, but it imports details from a variety of them. For
instance "Dunkirk" is a powerful thriller, which keeps us on the edge of our seats
from the opening shots right until the end, it has hints of drama and it covers
topics such as love, family, friendship, anger. This is what makes
"Dunkirk" so successful and appealing to a widespread audience. When speaking of war
films many people will turn down the offer of watching them, mainly because of
the negative memory of tedious black and white documentaries we were forced to
watch in school or on TV. And also I understand that many people would not
find what happened at Dunkerque as morbidly interesting as living in the
concentration camps or what happened with the atomic bombs on Japan. But
Nolan's "Dunkirk" has such an engaging plot and it is so visually stunning that
it had (and still has) crowds filling the cinemas, with an audience which ranges
from veterans to young teens. Also a problem that happens with many
documentaries or war films is that many things are taken for granted, as if the
work just assumes that the spectators are well informed about all the facts.
With "Dunkirk" instead the story is explained in a very simple manner, making
it easily accessible to all audiences. But what exactly makes "Dunkirk" so
engaging? "Dunkirk" drags us into the story right
from the first opening shots in which we meet one of the very young soldiers and
we see the war from his point of view, we feel the need to get out of there as
soon as possible, an attack could happen at any moment.. from above, from below from
anywhere. There is no space for dialogues, because the goal is just that of
survival. So we are included in that feeling of anxiety, of wanting the
characters to get out of there. This uneasiness, this feeling of utter suspence,
of something terrible lurking just behind the corner is emphasised by Hans
Zimmer's soundtrack which uses his trademark ticking sound, which counts down the time
that's flowing by, the time to the next attack, the time to the next death. And he
combines this with a nearly siren effect, and a sound which appears as if it is
constantly rising but without ever reaching its climax,
so always keeping us on the edge of our seats. I absolutely loved how the cast
was cleverly put together. If you notice many of the soldiers on the beach at
Dunkerque look extremely similar. Just think of Fionn Whitehead, Aneurin
Barnard and Harry Styles: in the midst of the fight their appearance is so
alike that in certain scenes it's easy to mistake one for another. And this is
not because we are not careful enough but it is because Christopher Nolan
didn't want a specific character development of one figure above the
others. We do mostly follow Tommy on the beach but yet the soldiers are still
presented as this mass of young, unknown, unnamed soldiers. They're just pawns in a
world scheme which is bigger than them, bigger than comprehension. And
after all even Tommy's name is an extremely forgettable and generic one
and I believe it's also a nickname for any given soldier. And this concept is
why Harry Styles is not... Harry Styles in the film. He is not the shiny, new
piece. He is identical to all his fellow soldiers: young, skinny, brave, somewhat
arrogant but at the same time scared, inexperienced and traumatised.
The film has an exceptional cast of famous actors such as Kenneth Branagh,
Mark Rylance but what I mean is that introducing a humongous famous name in
the cinema industry such as DiCaprio, Depp, Pitt, Hanks, standing out in the
crowd of unnamed, shivering soldiers would have totally been out of place,
ruining the anonymity of the whole situation. Then in stark contrast to the
mass on the beach, the Royal Air Force pilots are analysed as specific
individual characters. I believe because of the fact that there were so few of
them and the few of them that arrived were considered from below as angels
that were saving the day. In particular we meet Tom Hardy's character which is
the pilot of one of the Spitfire planes, bravely defending the territory. Tom
Hardy is a recurring figure in Nolan's films and I personally consider him one
of the most skilled actors on the scene at the moment. Throughout his career he has
covered a variety of different personalities and I have always been
amazed at his ability of conveying everything (a full set of emotions, a
background, a character) with limited resources.
Just think of "Mad Max - Fury Road" when he barely speaks for the whole film, or "Dark
Knight Rises" where his face is covered. And in "Dunkirk" most of his acting is
conveyed through his eyes, as his face is covered for most of the film by a helmet
and a mouthpiece. Speaking of limited dialogues there is a
common misconception that this film is one hour and forty of nearly pure
silence. In reality the dialogues are limited, extremely limited, but they're
not completely cut out and absent, because there are complete discussions
and interactions. It is a stylistic choice which perfectly represents the
general atmosphere of the film, because the main objective is that of surviving,
of getting out of that nightmare, of conveying the right emotions at the right
time, without filling the blanks with useless information. For example there's
one scene which is also used in the trailer, in which the soldiers are
sitting on the beach, looking out at sea and you can really tell that those eyes,
those eyes which are barely twenty years old, have already seen much more than
what they should have, they are deprived of any emotion. And this speaks much more
than words. Also because we have such limited information about the characters
we tend to form our own personal idea of them, we tend to judge them with no
previous material. For example Cillian Murphy portrays a character which not
everybody could love (including me) for a series of reasons I will not delve into
to not spoil anything. But we must keep in mind the fact that we don't know
anything about him or any other character. We don't know what they've
gone through, because that is the sense of war: a huge, incomprehensible
world-wide scheme which goes way beyond me, beyond you or beyond any of the
characters. Now let's take a look at the visual aspect of the film. Nolan once
again teamed up with cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema (which has worked on
films like "Her" and "Interstellar") and my high expectations were definitely not
let down. "Dunkirk" is a breathtaking visual
masterpiece under every aspect, from the dark ominous sky to the stunning aerial
shots of the sea, to the wind blowing foam around the soldiers ankles. We are cast
into this unwelcoming, cold, hostile environment. I definitely don't agree
with the criticism surrounding the supposedly visible cardboard cutouts and
the absence of a potentially favourable increased use of CGI. I personally found
all the effects in the film to be realistic and convincing
and if you look up information as to how certain effects were conveyed and how
certain details were introduced, you realise how the care put into this film is
just overwhelming. So in general I appreciated everything
in this film, from the attention to historic accuracy, to the choice of the
actors, from the use of sounds and music to the dialogues and then... the ending.
Again I'm not going to reveal anything, but let me just say the ending is
absolutely fantastic, it is magical, pure art, a climax of feelings and at the
moment I put it very high on a potential list of best endings. I have a
feeling there is so much more I would like to say about this film and I'm sure that
as soon as this video is uploaded and I'll be doing the subtitles, so many more
things will come to my mind. For now another thing I'd like to add is just
that I'm pretty sure that this film will be included in a few months when
speaking of Oscars. Some of you may know that my favourite film of all time
and my favourite film created by Christopher Nolan is "Interstellar", so
here comes the big question: is "Dunkirk" better? Speaking of my own personal
opinion, I still prefer "Interstellar", it speaks to me on so many different levels, it
he has taught me so many things about love, about appreciation of life, about
death, about space, about time. But that being said, "Dunkirk" is very high on the
list and I believe it is one of the best films of the year. The only sad aspect of
these films is that we will have to wait a long time before seeing something
similar on screen. For now thank You Christopher Nolan, thank you Emma Thomas,
Hoyte Van Hoytema, Hans Zimmer and all of the cast for once again allowing us
to dream and have faith in cinema, one of the things which make this world so
beautiful. I hope you enjoyed this video, if you did make sure to check out my
Christopher Nolan playlist which I'll leave linked down below and make sure to
subscribe for more movie-related content. See you soon, bye!
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