Dunkirk (2017)

This truly is a masterpiece. It is not your typical war film. It does not tread on your emotions. It is not bloody. There is no climactic battle. You never see the enemy. You never see the loved ones on the home front. It is pure war, intense drama.  It is fully immersive. I am now traumatized by that ticking soundtrack by Hans Zimmer (the fan in Morgan's room was making the exact same sound). I saw it in glorious IMAX on 70mm film. Christopher Nolan is the savior of film. Film is somehow old school and also the future of theatrical experiences. The picture was so clear. You could see every face. You wallow in the expanse of the sea and the beach. The cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema is stunning, especially in the aerial scenes. The scenes on the boat were not filmed in IMAX. You can see the ratio is different. It doesn't fill the top and bottom of the screen. But I want to say that the picture looked not necessarily sharper but more vivid and real.

Remember, this is a Christopher Nolan film. Nothing is straight. So we follow three different non-linear narratives. The Mole (the beach) story takes place over a week. The Sea story takes place over a day. And The Air story takes place over an hour. The film cuts back and forth between the narratives without telling the audience what takes place when. You see some scenes in the darkness of night intercut with daytime scenes. You see the boat in the background of the plane scene, watching an event that hasn't yet happened in the Sea story. This is all just brilliant editing and storytelling.

Dunkirk is a point of pride for British people. It was a lost battle, an utter defeat, but a successful retreat. America had not yet entered the war. And that is why American's don't really know what happened at Dunkirk. The focus of the film is strictly on the British. The Germans are never named. The French are not shown, controversially. The Indians are not shown, controversially. But that's not the point. The point here is that Dunkirk is a British success story. This is about British pride. And you never lose focus of that.