Saturday, March 03, 2018

Movie review - "Dunkirk" (2017) ***1/2

I saw this on an airplane and maybe I had to see it on the big screen to find it amazing. It's perfectly fine - I liked the minimal dialogue, particularly as when that dialogue was spoken it tended to be on the nose. The device of using three courses of action that takes place at different times works well, and some of the cast were very good such as Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy.

I liked the music and the photography and some bits have stayed with me - the deaths of the soldiers at the beginning, the sailor going blind, the plane being on fire at the end. Not that many of them, though. The soldier who was constantly trying to leave was a bit of a little shit - I know it was realistic but he was unpleasant to spend time with.

The film curiously pulls its emotional punches. The kid who dies on the boat wasn't the son of the boat owner (incidentally the actor who plays the son looks hilariously like a young Christopher Nolan) but a random friend of the family; we never meet the father, or any of his relatives so the death is muted. The British soldiers we focus on all live - even the pilots - but the one we spend a bit more time with is French, and he dies. None of the officers die.

It's a good movie, don't get me wrong - I'm glad I saw it. I just don't get how people think it's one of the greatest movies of the year.

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