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The DVD of the movie Dunkirk just came out and I watched it on Christmas Day. Afterward I went on the net to see what others thought of it and was a little surprised it had gotten such good reviews.
As a war film frankly I thought it was sub par. If you'd consider it a disaster genre movie, I'd say it was better, definitely okey-dokey. But 4 to 4 1/2 stars? Nah, it wasn't that good.
All movies on historical themes are going to be distorted. It just can't be helped. You have to emphasize some things and ignore others. You should tell a story, even if the story isn't quite what actually happened. With Dunkirk, they very much reveled in distortion. The main timeline is purposely distorted, and well into the film you are given graphic warnings about that. But what those warnings mean only become clear in the last third of the film. At that point of realization, I was thinking the film was just an overly arty mess, which isn't exactly fair. By the end of the film I understood what the film was trying to do with the three main lines of its story as they came together. But I have to say the multiple timelines were done fairly ineptly. You really can't understand what is going on overall at most points in the film unless you watch it multiple times and as a movie, it just isn't worth that.
I don't know what is taught in Great Britain about the Second World War. But I suspect that the majority of the American teens and twenty somethings (it's rated PG-13) who saw it in theaters had little idea of the importance of Dunkirk as an event in the War. This film in no way could give them any idea of the context, either military or political, that brought it about. They wouldn't be able to tell you walking out of the theater what a bunch of French and British soldiers were doing standing around on a beach with no weapons, and unless they were listening closely they wouldn't be able to tell you that a significant majority of all those encircled got away. They certainly wouldn't be able to tell you what a majority of the "little boats" came to do at Dunkirk, even though that, too, was mentioned briefly in the dialog. The film ends with one of the soldiers reading Churchill's "We Shall Fight" speech aloud out of a newspaper, continuing till the bit about "the New World," which likely gave young American viewers a totally unrealistic idea about what happened in the war for the next full year and a half after Dunkirk. At least some of this might be cleared up if they go to see Darkest Hour now, but since I haven't seen that I don't know how much is cleared up. Certainly having Darkest Hour come out so long after Dunkirk was unfortunate for young American viewers.
The characters in "Dunkirk" were fairly nondescript. Americans will likely see Professor Gilderoy Lockhart on the mole the whole picture, rather than whoever Kenneth Branagh was portraying. The main character, the common soldier on the ground, as it were, kept getting lost in the crowd of others although clearly you were supposed to be following him. And in the air, the brave pilot's face was covered except for a few seconds, so you could only tell him from his voice. The guys working the boat have some personality, but the dad-son relationship is something out of the 1980s not 1940. I suspect Branagh is the only one anyone will remember, though the common soldier was on screen a heck of a lot more.
In terms of story, unless you see it as a disaster movie, you have to wonder what they were thinking. The common soldier, is a deserter in all but name. Though considerable time passes, he makes no attempt to find out where he is supposed to be in the huge mass of soldiers. Understandably he's always trying to escape the beach, but it should have been obvious after his first failed attempt that unless somebody thought he was supposed to be with a particular group he was going to have a hard time. The pilot worries constantly about his fuel supply, but it's the amount of ammunition in his plane that for the wrong reason will truly astound anyone familiar with WWII aircraft. Kenneth Branagh is very much a kindly exposition-giver for what little backstory you get.
If you've seen one disaster movie you can guess what will happen in all of them. So as a disaster movie Dunkirk works better than as a war film. That's about all I can say about it.
As a war film frankly I thought it was sub par. If you'd consider it a disaster genre movie, I'd say it was better, definitely okey-dokey. But 4 to 4 1/2 stars? Nah, it wasn't that good.
All movies on historical themes are going to be distorted. It just can't be helped. You have to emphasize some things and ignore others. You should tell a story, even if the story isn't quite what actually happened. With Dunkirk, they very much reveled in distortion. The main timeline is purposely distorted, and well into the film you are given graphic warnings about that. But what those warnings mean only become clear in the last third of the film. At that point of realization, I was thinking the film was just an overly arty mess, which isn't exactly fair. By the end of the film I understood what the film was trying to do with the three main lines of its story as they came together. But I have to say the multiple timelines were done fairly ineptly. You really can't understand what is going on overall at most points in the film unless you watch it multiple times and as a movie, it just isn't worth that.
I don't know what is taught in Great Britain about the Second World War. But I suspect that the majority of the American teens and twenty somethings (it's rated PG-13) who saw it in theaters had little idea of the importance of Dunkirk as an event in the War. This film in no way could give them any idea of the context, either military or political, that brought it about. They wouldn't be able to tell you walking out of the theater what a bunch of French and British soldiers were doing standing around on a beach with no weapons, and unless they were listening closely they wouldn't be able to tell you that a significant majority of all those encircled got away. They certainly wouldn't be able to tell you what a majority of the "little boats" came to do at Dunkirk, even though that, too, was mentioned briefly in the dialog. The film ends with one of the soldiers reading Churchill's "We Shall Fight" speech aloud out of a newspaper, continuing till the bit about "the New World," which likely gave young American viewers a totally unrealistic idea about what happened in the war for the next full year and a half after Dunkirk. At least some of this might be cleared up if they go to see Darkest Hour now, but since I haven't seen that I don't know how much is cleared up. Certainly having Darkest Hour come out so long after Dunkirk was unfortunate for young American viewers.
The characters in "Dunkirk" were fairly nondescript. Americans will likely see Professor Gilderoy Lockhart on the mole the whole picture, rather than whoever Kenneth Branagh was portraying. The main character, the common soldier on the ground, as it were, kept getting lost in the crowd of others although clearly you were supposed to be following him. And in the air, the brave pilot's face was covered except for a few seconds, so you could only tell him from his voice. The guys working the boat have some personality, but the dad-son relationship is something out of the 1980s not 1940. I suspect Branagh is the only one anyone will remember, though the common soldier was on screen a heck of a lot more.
In terms of story, unless you see it as a disaster movie, you have to wonder what they were thinking. The common soldier, is a deserter in all but name. Though considerable time passes, he makes no attempt to find out where he is supposed to be in the huge mass of soldiers. Understandably he's always trying to escape the beach, but it should have been obvious after his first failed attempt that unless somebody thought he was supposed to be with a particular group he was going to have a hard time. The pilot worries constantly about his fuel supply, but it's the amount of ammunition in his plane that for the wrong reason will truly astound anyone familiar with WWII aircraft. Kenneth Branagh is very much a kindly exposition-giver for what little backstory you get.
If you've seen one disaster movie you can guess what will happen in all of them. So as a disaster movie Dunkirk works better than as a war film. That's about all I can say about it.
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