“The latest film by Christopher Nolan is a new way in which the director expands visual and genre horizons that he has explored before, this time in the realms of war cinema. A difficult genre, it’s always dangerous to speak about it, especially when it comes to its moral and representation issues. What does the war genre want? What does a filmmaker want from it? François Truffaut opened fire saying that there’s no such thing as pacifist cinema, which was expanded upon by Spielberg many years later by saying that there’s no such thing as a war film that isn’t pro-war. So, let’s get away from those big names and those issues and let’s get this straight: I usually don’t like war films. Now, there are some films among them that I hold dear, and Dunkirk has turned into one of them. But why?
“Nolan’s film is ambitious, telling the story of the escape from the battle of Dunkirk, where more than 300,000 British soldiers were evacuated from the shore of the French city after a catastrophic defeat by the Germans. Nolan divides his approach into three different space/time segments, which are edited together and in parallel: the shore of Dunkirk (showing events that last a week), the English Channel (during one day) and the airspace above (an hour). For this reason, it’s one of the most experimental pieces of mass media in terms of editing and misé-en-scene in a long time. Even though Nolan takes his time to introduce every one of the three aspects of the film, the editing between them provokes the sensation that you are seeing every corner possible to the conflict. At the same time it’s not a totalizing film or one that aims for a complete experience of what that battle in particular was like, but it only tries to get across one idea: war is an uphill battle not between two forces, but internally, against the loss of humanity that war causes.
“Dunkirk happened at a time during the War in which any outcome seemed possible: Russia was still swamped by its non-aggression pact with Hitler and the Americans hadn’t yet entered the fray. The evacuation of France was the final stage of a lost battle. One might call it a ‘moral victory’, but the film constantly undermines that concept by showing that there’s nothing moral to be seen. As each of the British and French soldiers (not one German soldier shows up until the very end) do what’s possible to survive, they’re capable of anything: betrayal, clamoring in the dirt, trampling over others, and other acts that could be construed as cowardice. Nolan’s film is not the glorification of a triumph - there’s no triumph here - but it isn’t one that condemns the soldiers for their actions either, but it understands them for what they are: humans in the worst possible circumstances.
“It makes sense that in the weeks prior to the world premiere of the film Nolan would list films and directors that inspired him visually and thematically, he specifically praised the works of Robert Bresson. I don’t want to suggest that Nolan is the sole heir and successor of one of the greatest directors of all time, but each one of the segments that he puts together applies or gives an idea of Bresson’s cinema, as if Nolan had made this film as a sort of dissertation on how the legacy of that master is all but dead.
“For example, the segment in the shores of Dunkirk, where we see thousands of soldiers waiting, hiding when the bombs come, anonymous… here the used of mostly unknown actors as the soldiers suggests Bresson’s casting process, as the master mostly used people he found in the streets, generally similar to the role they were going to play. Now, clearly Nolan couldn’t cast actual WWII soldiers, but most of these performers are unknown (the exception being Harry Styles, though Nolan didn’t know who he was until he was already cast). These actors follow simple acting directions, mostly reacting to things happening around them - hiding when a plane buzzes over, rushing forward when a boat appears, protecting themselves when attacked - much like the ‘models’ of Bresson. This straightforward style makes them believable and relatable to the audience in their simple and sensible approach to what they should do, and you feel almost entrenched alongside them.
“Completely moving away from anonymity and possible distance, we go to another Bressonian aspect that is manifested in the scenes that take place on a boat on the ocean. A father sails in a small craft from London into Dunkirk with his son and a humble kid from town who volunteers to help. All of this is part of a general call from the the British military, which commandeers every ship possible to go in the search of stranded soldiers. Mark Rylance plays the father, delivering a performance that could be identified with an almost Christian piety, similar to the one that Bresson felt or wanted his characters to feel. This old sailor wants to save as many as he can not necessarily for a patriotic conviction (although there is some of that), but a more personal one: his firstborn died in the first weeks of war, and he desperately wants that no one else follows on that similar path. Much like other characters in Bresson films, from the animals to Mouchette, the character played by Rylance is confronted with signs that what he’s doing makes no sense, that evil and death is what surrounds him. Still, he stoically presses on, faithful to his convictions, never mind the risk, even if a shell-shocked man pleads him not to go to Dunkirk, because there’s nothing left to be done there.
“Finally, the sequence on air, in which three airplane fighters (led by Tom Hardy) do a routine maneuver of defense for an hour to assist those stationed in Dunkirk by protecting them from assaults by German bombers. Here Nolan’s debt to Bresson is seen in the construction of shots, editing and direction similar to those in his later films. Feet, heads and objects are the actions that give deep sense to the story. We’re mostly confined to the small cabin of Tom Hardy’s airplane, feeling how every second counts, how he writes with a piece of chalk the amount of fuel that’s left after every detour he makes on the way for his main objective. These scenes generate suspense through their immediacy, which carries over to the other storylines through the editing, even though these other scenes have more (non-diegetic) time to develop their events.
“Is this Nolan’s masterpiece? Hard to say. Like much of his work, Dunkirk has been divisive. But watching the film, one gets the feeling that Nolan is less interested in surpassing Bresson than in paying him homage. In addition to making one of the best war movies of recent years, he’s also made one of the best analytical exercises on cinematic language, not only spending hundreds of millions of dollars in studio money to do so, but also winning them back and then some. In an age when many blockbusters are timid, Nolan’s bravery is encouraging.” ~ Jaime Grijalba
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