DUNKIRK (Christopher Nolan 2017)

[Chris Knipp]

The genre and outlook of Dunkirk: not so much war, as disaster and survival

The thing about Dunkirk is that it certainly focuses on a crucial moment for Europe in the Second World War, but it's also peripheral to the War since it has no battle in it, no combat, and is a retreat, an evacuation. It's relevant to mention United 93, others have too, and also many have mentioned James Cameron's Titanic. A lot of the "Mole" segments of Dunkirk that are its the most powerful, are disaster movie material on a grand scale. The central focus, neatly (again) underlined at the end, is not on winning but surviving, which is what you do in a disaster, if you're lucky: you survive it.

The old man (who turns out to be blind, as Tommy sees but Alex misses - one of Dunkirk's crafty little details) gives the boys blankets and congratulates them.

Alex says: "But all we did was survive."

And the old man answers: "Sometimes that's enough."

So the main action is from the point of view of young soldiers, especially the three, Tommy, Alex, Gibson, going from ship to ship as one after another gets torpedoed or shot up and sunk, and escaping desperately to another, then sent back to the beach, and having to wait in the cold and damp and uncertainty, and struggle again to get onto one of the civilian rescue boats that come, through fire and water, and water that's on fire. Being in the water full of oil when a plane in flames drops into it is one of the most terrifying moments of the long struggle to survive the young men go through - surviving to another day, to go back to war, perhaps to die in battle.

I think I like this so much because I know that it would be my experience if I was a young soldier (and I was a young soldier, but not in combat, just training), I could see that this was how I felt and would feel in this situation. It is the experience of being in the Army, most of the time. You are helpless, part of a collectivity, but also on your own, and your primary task is your own survival. This is the subject of Dunkirk.

The smallness of the roles, the lack of detail about the characters, isn't a proper gauge of how memorable they are or how much you might care about them. That's not how it works in this movie. Possibly the most memorable of all is George, the 17-year-old friend of Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney), son of Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance). Thanks to Peter, the world would remember George too. Mr. Dawson is humble and ordinary in his determination to do his civic duty, but who can forget him? He is the embodiment of Operation Dynamo, and it's not an accident that he's played by one of England's greatest actors, Mark Rylance.

This is the way the great English studio films of the Fifties were. Everyone in the cast was fine, without distinction. Everybody was a star, but there were no stars. Christopher Nolan carries out this spirit in making some complete unknown young actors as important in the film as three four of the UK's finest actors, Cillian Murphy, Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy.