Written by Christopher Nolan
Producers Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan
Starring Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glyn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard, James D’Arcy, Barry Keoghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy
Music Hans Zimmer
Cinematography Hoyte van Hoytema
Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk tells the true story of the WWII evacuation in which more than 300,000 Allied soldiers were pulled off the beaches by hundreds of boats after being trapped by German forces. To a lot of people, it was a miracle. Funny enough, so is this movie.
Dunkirk isn’t long, just 106 minutes, but that’s plenty of time for Nolan to hammer a powerful piece of cinema into our heads and hearts. With very little dialogue and a heavy reliance on music and sound, the film cuts between three storylines. One follows a week on the beach, one a day at sea, and one an hour in the air. On the beach, we meet Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), a young British soldier trying to escape Dunkirk with another soldier, Gibson (Aneurin Barnard). At sea, there’s Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance), a civilian who sails his own boat across the Channel to help, along with his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) and Peter’s friend George (Barry Keoghan). In the air, Spitfire pilots Farrier (Tom Hardy) and Collins (Jack Lowden) cover the troops from above. Harry Styles, Kenneth Branagh, and Cillian Murphy fill out the rest of the cast.
The acting is phenomenal, and I can’t praise the ensemble enough. The raw emotion makes it impossible not to relate to them. Murphy’s unnamed soldier is a perfect example. He captures fear and anxiety so believably that his small role feels larger than life, and it reflects the dedication of the whole cast.
Maybe the biggest star isn’t in the cast at all, but behind the camera. In the vein of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Nolan lets silence and Hans Zimmer’s music build the tension. When there is dialogue, it’s brief, and what’s left is a heart-pounding score and the occasional deafening burst of gunfire that drops you right into the battle. The crisp camera work adds to it, giving you a mix of tunnel vision, claustrophobia, and a sense of sheer scale.
As I mentioned, the film is told out of order, and Nolan has a clever way of helping you piece it together. Those three timelines run on different clocks, so they overlap and cross over each other. Early on, Farrier’s fuel gauge gets smashed in a dogfight, so he relies on Collins to radio him his fuel level and chalks the number onto his instrument panel. It starts at around fifty gallons and only goes down from there, which makes it a ticking clock for the hour in the air. It adds another layer of complexity and a bit of audience participation you don’t get from most movies.
Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema deserves praise too, especially for the beautiful shots of the beach and the sea. There are several scenes with huge layers of sea foam blowing in the wind that send a chill down your spine, because you can feel how cold Dunkirk really is. Together, Nolan and van Hoytema make you feel the bitter cold and the beauty at the same time.
It’s clear Dunkirk is striving for something greater and trying to break free of genre conventions. It has raw emotion, gorgeous visuals, and a tension that builds right to the end. With its cinematography, rich sound, and exquisite cast, Dunkirk might be Nolan’s masterpiece and one of the most inventive, bold war films to date.
