Dunkirk (2017) [Blu-ray]
Action | Drama | History | Thriller | War

Tagline: Trapped.

Acclaimed auteur Christopher Nolan directs this World War II thriller about the evacuation of Allied troops from the French city of Dunkirk before Nazi forces can take hold. Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh and Mark Rylance co-star, with longtime Nolan collaborator Hans Zimmer providing the score.

Storyline: Evacuation of Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Empire, and France, who were cut off and surrounded by the German army from the beaches and harbor of Dunkirk, France, between May 26- June 04, 1940, during Battle of France in World War II. Written by Harvey

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Michael Reuben, December 17, 2017 Dunkirk arrives on Blu-ray and UHD amidst a full-court awards press by Warner Brothers and director Christopher Nolan, who are hoping to add a few statuettes to the film's impressive box office. The film is also the vanguard of a massive technical effort to present seven of Nolan's films on UHD, a format of which the director is such an enthusiastic convert that he has personally overseen the 4K preparation of all seven films. It's an interesting turn toward digital presentation for a filmmaker whose commitment to celluloid is legendary and whose movies routinely sport a credit indicating that they have been "Shot and Finished on Film". With even diehards like Steven Spielberg choosing the digital intermediate route for post-production, Nolan has become the most eminent holdout to remain committed to achieving his artistic vision by photochemical means.

Nolan is also rare among modern-day directors in preferring live action "in camera" effects over digital trickery, a predilection that is repeatedly stressed throughout the Blu-ray's extensive special features. As a triumph of filmmaking technique and innovation, Dunkirk stands favorable comparison with any of classical Hollywood's epic pre-digital achievements. The question is whether the film effectively grounds its vistas in an emotional immediacy that can breathe life into technical accomplishments which, by themselves, are impressive but soulless. On that score, at least for this viewer, Dunkirk does not succeed.

As anyone reading Blu-ray.com probably already knows, Dunkirk was shot with a combination of IMAX 65 and Panavision 65 cameras, and it was released to theaters in a variety of formats, including 70mm, IMAX and IMAX 70mm. It's an ideal source for 4K presentation in the home, and Nolan reportedly regards Dunkirk's UHD as its definitive representation on video. By comparison, the standard Blu-ray, which pushes the 1080p format to its limits, is something of a poor stepchild. It's been prepared with exquisite care under Nolan's supervision, and it's a superb presentation, but there's only so much resolution and refinement that Blu-ray can offer, especially with a large-negative source such as Dunkirk.

After I saw Dunkirk theatrically—in 70mm, seated dead center in front of a three-story-high IMAX screen—I described it to friends and family as the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan extended to feature length. Having now rewatched Nolan's passion project on Blu-ray and UHD, I realize that my earlier description was inaccurate. Like Steven Spielberg in Ryan, Nolan has skillfully deployed vast cinematic resources to plunge the viewer into a maelstrom inspired by a historic World War II engagement, but Spielberg's effort remained anchored in a form of traditional storytelling that has all but disappeared in Dunkirk. Spielberg presented the D-Day invasion as experienced from the viewpoint of one Army officer, and he cannily cast Tom Hanks in the role, relying on one of film's most relatable everymen to establish an instant connection with the audience. After surviving the bloody battle, Hanks's Army captain is charged with an unusual mission, on which he is accompanied by a squad of men whose histories and characters we get to know intimately. Following the shock of its opening, Ryan settles into the familiar narrative pattern of a journey, punctuated by diverse encounters along the way and deepened by our increasing familiarity with the men and our growing attachment to each of them. The war matters to us because it matters to them.

Nolan has dispensed with all such narrative techniques. His characters are blanks, with many played by actors who are largely unknown. Throughout the film they remain almost entirely devoid of personal history or characteristics. The director moves them around the screen like chess pieces in a game that only he—and history—can see in its totality. (Yes, I realize the cast includes familiar faces like Kenneth Branagh and Tom Hardy, but bear with me.) In Nolan's rendition of this crucial moment in both the war and Britain's survival as a nation, individuals no longer matter, and neither do the leaders calling the shots from across the channel in London. (If you want to see what was happening at home, watch Darkest Hour.) What matters is the chaos, and Nolan aspires not just to re-create the chaos but also to subject viewers to an experience replicating the fear and uncertainty of the characters—but not because we are pulled into the their world to feel what they do. In Dunkirk, it's not the events depicted on screen that shake us, but the dizzying sights and punishing sounds constructed for our entertainment. For all of Nolan's declared intent to honor the British soldiers and their civilian rescuers, he's recast the Dunkirk evacuation as a multiplex thrill ride that ends up feeling as artificial and self-referential as any of his Dark Knight movies or puzzle creations like Memento and The Prestige. This isn't the Dunkirk of history; it's Nolan's commemorative Tilt-A-Whirl.

The artifice begins with the film's three story lines, each of which runs at a different speed in a separate setting. On the beaches in France where 350,000 British troops have been cornered by the Nazi onslaught, the camera depicts the merciless bombing and strafing from German planes and the desperate (and futile) struggle to evacuate soldiers to the distant British destroyers. A message onscreen tells us that this ordeal lasts a week, although there's little sense of time passing, while Nolan keeps returning to an anonymous soldier identified as "Tommy" in the credits and played by Fionn Whitehead in his first feature film. Meanwhile, in a separate sequence that is said to occupy an hour, a fighter pilot attempts to offer air cover to the evacuation, battling superior forces and his own dwindling fuel supply. His name is Farrier, and he's played by Nolan regular Tom Hardy, but we barely see his face until the film's end, and he's such a generic figure that he could be played by anyone. In the seas below, a small private boat, the Moonstone, is part of the civilian armada mobilized by the British government to cross the Channel and attempt a rescue in waters too shallow for large Navy ships to navigate. Its captain is Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance), who is accompanied by his son, Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney), and a teenage acquaintance, George (Barry Keoghan), a diffident kid who just wants to be part of the war effort. En route, they rescue a shell-shocked soldier (Cillian Murphy) from a wrecked ship, who panics when he realizes that the Moonstone is returning him to Dunkirk. The sea sequence comes closest to traditional drama, simply because something has to fill the time during the day's length of the voyage.

Nolan orchestrates these sequences with precision, and editor Lee Smith, who has edited nearly all of the director's films, expertly cross-cuts among them, while Hans Zimmer's throbbing score generates a visceral sense of urgency that is accentuated by the ticking clock incorporated into the sound mix. But one is always aware of the artificiality of Nolan's temporal conceit, which demands the viewer's attention as much as—or even more than—the events being portrayed. As the three time periods converge, Dunkirk becomes an intellectual guessing game, challenging you to analyze where each strand will intersect the other and nudging your attention away from the perilous history that the film is working so hard to portray. The film's sights and sounds are effectively unnerving, but they also remain abstract. There's barely any sense of connection between historical events and the viewer.

The one exception to this chilly distance occurs in the seafaring segment, where the Moonstone's voyage effectively individuates several of the characters, notably Mark Rylance's Dawson. Much of the credit is due to Rylance, who is one of the finest actors working today, with an Oscar for Bridge of Spies and a shelf-load of theater awards too numerous to mention. In Dawson's distinctive demeanor—simultaneously mournful, resigned, steadfast and determined—Rylance does what no other performer in Dunkirk manages to pull off, effectively willing into existence a specific and memorable character to which the viewer feels a connection, even if one can't say exactly what it is. (The connection becomes more concrete when key facts are revealed late in the film.) The particularity of Rylance's portrayal spreads to that of his son and of young George, whose involvement in the Dunkirk evacuation provides a poignant coda to the film. By contrast to Rylance and his makeshift crew, Cillian Murphy's traumatized survivor is a skeletal outline of a person, who has been inserted into the story to provide conflict. Similar abstraction befalls the naval officer played by Kenneth Branagh in the beach scenes, whose job is provide the bare essentials of exposition about the challenges of rescue. Branagh gives the part his all, and he's a fine enough actor to create the illusion of a full-blooded character for as long as he's on the screen, but his commander remains as generic as Hardy's flyer, and he leaves no impression once the film ends.

Ridley Scott has spoken of film directing as a "performance", and Nolan's performance is certainly the star of Dunkirk. As the director coordinates aerial dogfights, stages perilous sea encounters and choreographs masses of extras on the beach in scenes of increasing desperation, his technical mastery always remains front and center. When the film's credits roll, you're not so much left with a sense of awe and admiration at the troops' survival as a grudging recognition of a filmmaker's virtuosity at bludgeoning audiences into admiring submission.

As I said in the introduction, Dunkirk's Blu-ray presentation, as good as it is, arrives as something of a poor stepchild to its UHD rendition, which is being heavily promoted by its simultaneous release with six other Nolan films remastered in 4K. If you love the film, or even if you're just curious to see what the fuss is about, the Blu-ray will not disappoint, but the 4K is better. As for the film itself, it's an extraordinary technical achievement, but it's not a world to which one yearns to return. There's more patriotic passion in Darkest Hour, more heroism in Saving Private Ryan and more battle fatigue in The Big Red One. For all its care and artifice, Dunkirk isn't nearly as moving as its creators obviously hoped. Its emotional temperature remains as chilly as the freezing waters across which Branagh's Navy commander can almost glimpse home.

[CSW] -4.1- In terms of dramatic tension there's simply no parallel to this one; this film is just shattering. It blends land, sea and air action in a chronologically risky way and pulls it off magnificently. Its tension was palpable, with a striking yet eerie style of visual storytelling. Hans Zimmer, famous for his bombastic movie scores, works miracles in this film as he blends the sounds of war with his music. Excessive violence was not needed to show the true horrors of war, and the true courage of the human spirit. Best of all, the disjointed and nonlinear storyline made for a unique and unpredictable plot, one cannot find in most other WWII epics. However from a purely military and political point of view, how the evacuation was planned and why the German attack failed was only hinted at.
[V5.0-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - D-Box really enhanced this movie.


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