During the Battle of France in World War II, the Nazi soldiers surround 350,000 British soldiers around Dunkirk, a coastal city in northern France. The British Army sends thousands of civilian boats to evacuate these people to the UK before being captured by the Nazi soldiers. British Army planes fly around the area to deter German war planes from striking the beach. Among the people who sail from the UK to France to pick up Allied soldiers is also sailor Dawson. Ultimately, the soldiers are evacuated in time and saved by crossing the la Manche.
"Dunkirk" is Christopher Nolan's most consistent film—it is based on a true story, and thus plays out simple, without Nolan's "muddling" with physics or plot twists. This depiction of a rarely mentioned episode from the World War II, the Dunkirk evacuation of 350,000 British soldiers before the Nazi occupation of France, is at times a fascinating film that defies the cliches of the war genre: "Dunkirk" is presented with very little dialogue, told mostly visually, where the enemy is never shown (except in one scene in the end) while the Allied soldiers are just nameless people, a face in the crowd since it constitutes a sort of "collective perspective" of the event, whereas the death is ever present, though only a few people die in the entire story. The opening has sharp details (a soldier pulls his pants down to defecate on the beach; a passanger observes an underwater torpedo approaching the ship, which then strikes, and a blackout covers a deck in darkness, causing panic among the people when the sea water starts filling the room) whereas the cinematography is exquisite. The first half is very good, but in the second half, it all becomes a bit routine, standard for a war film, apropos there are not that many surprises or inspiration to keep the interest of the viewers on a higher level. It is undeniably a good film, yet it lacks a more versatile approach.
Grade:++
No comments:
Post a Comment