When people make enough movies in a given genre, they ultimately end up doing the same things quite often, resulting in the establishment of various tropes and cliches. War movies are no exception, so Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk tries to break from tradition in some ways, with mixed results.
As the title would indicate, the film is about the evacuation of Allied forces from Dunkirk during World War II. It focuses on three separate plotlines- a soldier trying to escape, a pleasure boater who's taking part in the evacuation effort, and fighter pilots battling with the German air force- which take place over different spans of time and intersect. The pacing is quite fast, and never lets up for a moment, while switching between the stories keeps things from getting dull, which helps emphasize the constant sense of peril the soldiers feel. In that sense, the movie effectively captures and conveys the horrors of war, and there are many powerful emotional moments, from when the movie opens with the soldiers on the beaches, to when it closes with the soldiers back in Britain, ready to continue the fight.
All this sounds fairly compelling, and much of it is, so what's the problem? Hardly any of the characters get anything resembling a backstory or a personality. While I have heard Nolan's argument that those things are irrelevant in a battle for survival, they're also a large part of the reason why we care about main characters more than the nameless extras who die en masse, since they give those characters individuality and make them memorable. Without any of that, the film is essentially a story full of extras, and we have little reason to care whether any of the people we've seen so far make it out alive.
On a similar note, while the Allied soldiers get hardly any characterization, the Axis forces don't get any at all, simply being shown as gunshots from the distance and planes swooping in for attack runs. This isn't as much of a bad thing, considering that it does keep the focus on the protagonists' struggle for survival, but it also serves to dehumanize the enemy. This is essentially a trade-off- it fits with the film Dunkirk is trying to be, but comes at a price.
Perhaps I'm biased, but I personally believe that deliberately shortchanging characters in terms of development and characterization almost never works well. All in all, I can appreciate what Dunkirk set out to do, and also can concede it did some things well, but I can't wholeheartedly recommend it unless you're fine with its narrative shortcomings.
Powerful and Innnovative, But Deeply Flawed
When people make enough movies in a given genre, they ultimately end up doing the same things quite often, resulting in the establishment of various tropes and cliches. War movies are no exception, so Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk tries to break from tradition in some ways, with mixed results.
As the title would indicate, the film is about the evacuation of Allied forces from Dunkirk during World War II. It focuses on three separate plotlines- a soldier trying to escape, a pleasure boater who's taking part in the evacuation effort, and fighter pilots battling with the German air force- which take place over different spans of time and intersect. The pacing is quite fast, and never lets up for a moment, while switching between the stories keeps things from getting dull, which helps emphasize the constant sense of peril the soldiers feel. In that sense, the movie effectively captures and conveys the horrors of war, and there are many powerful emotional moments, from when the movie opens with the soldiers on the beaches, to when it closes with the soldiers back in Britain, ready to continue the fight.
All this sounds fairly compelling, and much of it is, so what's the problem? Hardly any of the characters get anything resembling a backstory or a personality. While I have heard Nolan's argument that those things are irrelevant in a battle for survival, they're also a large part of the reason why we care about main characters more than the nameless extras who die en masse, since they give those characters individuality and make them memorable. Without any of that, the film is essentially a story full of extras, and we have little reason to care whether any of the people we've seen so far make it out alive.
On a similar note, while the Allied soldiers get hardly any characterization, the Axis forces don't get any at all, simply being shown as gunshots from the distance and planes swooping in for attack runs. This isn't as much of a bad thing, considering that it does keep the focus on the protagonists' struggle for survival, but it also serves to dehumanize the enemy. This is essentially a trade-off- it fits with the film Dunkirk is trying to be, but comes at a price.
Perhaps I'm biased, but I personally believe that deliberately shortchanging characters in terms of development and characterization almost never works well. All in all, I can appreciate what Dunkirk set out to do, and also can concede it did some things well, but I can't wholeheartedly recommend it unless you're fine with its narrative shortcomings.