Dunkirk (2017) - A War Film Not Like You Think!

★★★★☆

You don’t have to know about the background to appreciate ‘Dunkirk’, a war film by Christopher Nolan based on a true event during the Second World War. I’m not familiar with the history either. Sometimes I’m confused who’s who and what’s what in there. Seeing it on IMAX even makes me feel a bit nauseous. That’s however, not the flaw of it. That’s the way the film is supposed to make you feel. It’s the charm I guess!

A few hundred thousand British and French soldiers are stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk, and waiting to be evacuated while the Germans are closing in on them. Yeah, that’s all the film has to tell about the backdrop with use of captions in the opening. Unlike ‘Saving Private Ryan’, ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ or any other conventional war films that usually have main characters, a particular storyline, a few setups to a climax, some extremely gruesome explosives to outline the madness of wars, ‘Dunkirk’ instead drops you in the middle of a climax from film one, and leave you there in awe and shock till the end without one single shot of the blood and gross!

With help of IMAX techniques, amazing camerawork and Hans Zimmer’s gripping score, you literally get to feel how they feel, fear what they fear, experiencing all sorts of phobias and desperations those soldiers have to undergo while making their way out! ‘Dunkirk’ is an unconventional war film that doesn’t really care how a battle or mission is fought and won. It focuses on the individuals, their psychological changes at particular time in particular place, and thus how they deal with their fate during the course. 106 minutes running time makes it the shortest war film I’ve ever seen, but the director who’s been fascinated about time still manages to pull a trick of nonlinear storytelling to keep your mind busy and make the film seem much longer than it actually is! Yes, this is so Christopher Nolan! And you’ll either like it or hate it!

The day I went to see the film is the day Linkin Park’s Chester hanged himself. What a shame indeed! I wonder what he would do instead if he could get to see ‘Dunkirk’; to see how those soldiers try so desperately not to get killed; to see why some individuals are willing to sacrifice so much to save a life. I know, a man who thinks of killing himself must be mentally unhealthy, and needs medicine. Still I guess Chester wouldn’t have if he had realized that staying alive is never his own business!