Dunkirk (2017)
This film may be a cinematic masterpiece and lauded as Nolan’s best film to date (I respectfully disagree), but when I exited the theater after having seen it on its premiere night, I was more depressed than impressed. So successful was it in creating a visceral experience, in making use of sight and (deafening) sound and absence of dialogue to illustrate the reality, that I could only sit back afterwards and sigh and feel a bit tired from the endeavor. It was like aging for months, watching these men from the three perspectives of land, sea, and air (my favorite is the one by sea, and not just because Mark Rylance is in it) (and may I say I still find that division of narratives quite ingenious), dealing with unique challenges that can only be specific to their setting. I was excited about this being a Nolan film, and my enthusiasm was well-met; I guess I just wasn’t prepared for the emotional battering that I underwent in those hours.
I cried a bit in the end, when the boys from land came back to England and this old blind man was handing out towels, saying “well done, lads, well done” and Harry Styles’s character crossly goes “all we did was survive”, and the man responds with “that’s enough” -- more than anything, that part really got to me. For all intents and purposes, the Dunkirk evacuation didn’t feel like a victory, it felt like a defeat because it was a retreat; but its description of a ‘moral victory’ because it was able to save lives, and because the citizens took it upon themselves to save their soldiers (Mark Rylance! light of my life!), that struck a chord with the true meaning of battles won. It offers a reality of war that most Hollywood titles don’t prefer to emphasize -- that it is unpleasant and disgusting and disheartening, that there is no glory or honor in it, just death and despair and hope that it will subside; it was such a bleak and unhappy picture, one that I wouldn’t usually volunteer to see; but more than that, that if we choose to, the worst of war can bring out the best in people too. That despite our own individual sufferings and personal fears, we can extend a hand, we can find ways to help (Kenneth Branagh staying for the French), and that’s how we fight back against the dampening of the spirit that war inevitably brings.
I am fortunate many times over for not having lived through a physical world war, for not intimately knowing the perils that these boys and men (and girls and women) went through. Thinking about Dunkirk now, I realize this film isn’t one that aims to make you think per se, but to make you feel -- and by doing so, to realize that there is no rhyme or reason to war, no poetry in it. It just is. And we can only hope so well that this is a reality we don’t experience.
