This summer breakout deserves to be seen on 70mm IMAX
Its been almost three years since Interstellar graced our multiplexes, and Christopher Nolan is back again with an equally ambitious project that will once again make us reevaluate the concept of the blockbuster. Set between May 29th and June 4th in 1940, Dunkirk has the director crafting a much different narrative than what you would probably expect. It’s a move that has the auteur subverting expectations while turning in yet another cinematic masterpiece that demands to be seen on the big screen.
Set during the Second World War, Dunkirk focuses not on a battle, but the British evacuation after the Fall of France. Allied soldiers from Britain, Belgium, Canada, and France are surrounded on all sides on the beaches of Dunkirk by the German army that is slowly pushing in. The film chronicles three fictional accounts during the “colossal military disaster” — taking place during one week on land, one day at sea, and one hour in the air. The story follows a group of soldiers desperate to escape, a man and his son on their way to the shores of Dunkirk to rescue soldiers as part of Operation Dynamo, and an Allied pilot (Tom Hardy) trying to keep his men alive until help can arrive. While all the stories start off at different points, they eventually fall into synch in the third act as a rare miracle transpires for those lucky enough to still be alive.
Dunkirk’s fractured narrative and theatrical presentation doesn’t feel like a film in the traditional sense, but more of a visceral cinematic experience that should be seen on the biggest screen possible, accompanied by the loudest sound available. While being light on dialogue and plot, the film instead relies on its breathtaking visuals and tense Hans Zimmer score to heighten the experience of the evacuation, drawing the audience into these stories of survival. The evacuation is visualized through a documentarian visual style as the events unfold and dots slowly start to connect for the audience. Nolan’s cast, who disappear in their roles, also help to firmly ground the epic and keep any distraction from the story at hand to a minimum. You really feel like no one is safe as an overwhelming sense of dread and helplessness hangs over the film.
The film is a tense watch, running a scant 106 minutes, which affords the director to maintain an almost unbearable level of uneasiness and tension without any reprieve for the audience. It’s a bold move by Nolan that gives a very objective look at this event with an almost fetishistic attention to detail. The production design on the film perfectly recreates the period with a preference for authenticity over what would probably be more aesthetically pleasing. This is compounded by the gorgeous IMAX cinematography that captures every detail with painstaking clarity, from the stunning dogfights to the immaculate costumes; Nolan has done his best to make sure there is nothing to pull the audience out of this experience.
Dunkirk has Nolan showing his mastery of the IMAX format to tell a story that that is easily one of his best works yet. The film is an amazing spectacle that is equally compelling in its realistic depiction of war that leaves any sort of grandeur behind. It’s hard look at survival through the eyes of those trapped on those beaches waiting for their fates to be decided, which definitely belongs with the best of the genre. With the multiplexes saturated with franchise fodder, Christopher Nolan has released the breakout experience of the summer that begs to been seen in the director’s preferred format of 70mm IMAX. For those who are Philadelphia locals, you can see the film in this approved format at the UA KOP with one of the best presentations you’re probably going to get on this title.