Dunkirk
Produced and directed by Christopher Nolan
Odeon BH2, Bournemouth in iSense, 21 July 2017
we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
Winston Churchill, 4 June 1940
Here’s the telling thing about this film. That speech comes right near the end, read haltingly from a newspaper on a train by our central, nameless surviving young soldier. No cutaways to the Cabinet Room. No Churchillian rolling rhetoric. Just a young lad stumbling through the newspaper story. They’re all nameless in this film … the only name I picked up was George, the young lad on the rescue boat.
The beaches in the film
Dunkirk plays a major part in British folklore. It was the ‘victory out of defeat’ in rescuing the British Expeditionary Force from the beaches of France, when they were cut off and surrounded by the German invaders. Churchill had hoped that 45,000 could be rescued … in the end 338,000 troops were rescued by over 600 vessels … nearly 500 of them non-naval craft. Many made multiple trips. The British talk about the Dunkirk spirit, and this has been lampooned by politicians from other nations … why do the British celebrate a defeat? After all, they lost 68,000 troops (3500 dead, 13,000 wounded, the rest captured)
Shakespeare has it down …
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,–
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
William Shakespeare “King Richard II” Act 2, Scene 1
We always took any adverse comments as the envy of less happier lands. When I was a boy, we often went to Poole Harbour and took the open ferries over to Brownsea Island. These small boats had brass plaques screwed into the sides, recording their participation in the evacuation at Dunkirk. They were customers of my dad, who was a rep for motor spares. I recall being told to shake hands with a boatman who my dad introduced as a hero of Dunkirk, having sailed all the way from Poole to Ramsgate (a 24 hour trip) before doing multiple crossings. I remember too him saying, ‘Bugger off, Bert. We just did what we had to do.”
This film, is a masterpiece. The immediate comparison will be Steven Speilberg’s Saving Private Ryan. Much as I admire that film about the D-Day beaches, I thought this more powerful. Why?
The jetty during a dive bomber attack
Everyone is nameless in their individual struggles for survival. There are no sentimental stories about devoting massive resources to saving one surviving brother in a family like Speilberg. There are no side stories, no weeping relatives back home, no cuts to the generals and politicians. No last letters to mums or girlfriends. No dearly held photos. (I have the photos of my mum and sister that my dad carried through WW2). Like the characters, we are in a very narrow focus on individual missions. There aren’t even any Germans … yes, we see plenty of German planes. We hear and see the impact of plenty of German bullets and bombs, but their only physical appearance is a brief second as shadowy figures right at the end. Nolan deliberately avoided even the word Germans … they’re “the enemy.”
The other important point in Dunkirk’s favour is that the film is a 12A here, and I want my 12 year old grandson to see this piece of history too. There is terror, hands gripping the seat, audible gasps from the audience stuff, but there is no lingering on gore or viscera or limbs or other body parts like Saving Private Ryan. The film is remarkably restrained in this while still being terrifying at times.
There are horrible deaths in the film, horrible deaths, but they’re not all bloody and gory, and therefore it’s got a PG-13 rating, which means that the young boys who, if they were like me, are always fascinated by war can come and see just how awful and chaotic any war is. And if, God forbid, they come to a time when they’re going to be drafted or something like that, they’ll be a little more informed about what might be asked of them
Mark Rylance, interviewed by Hollywood Reporter 20 July 2017
It is important history, and at my age I can grumble about inclusive history lessons on the cultures of the 13th century African Gold Coast replacing this World War II history in schools. It’s not “recent” to a new generation, but as a post-war child, it was very much part of my parents’ history.
All of it is propelled by Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack, perhaps his greatest ever. It rolls on relentlessly amid the explosions and gunshots and sinkings and crashes. At times it’s an industrial throb, at others it swells into melodic grandeur. The iSense sound was extraordinary in one of the newest cinemas in Britain.
The other major portrayal of Dunkirk’s beaches was in Atonement also brilliantly done, but very different. While Atonement was crowded chaos, in this the lines of soldiers are orderly, stretching back from the beach with wide separation between then. There is something terrifying about the orderly nature of it all.
Fionn Whitehead as the young soldier (“Tommy” on IMDB, but we never heard his name)
There are three interwoven stories, entitled Land, Sea, Air.
Land centres mainly on a young soldier, his unit all shot dead in the streets. He teams up with another young soldier who he meets stripping boots from a dead soldier in the sand. They don’t speak. No plot spoilers. So they’re both loners. Theirs is a desperate struggle just to get off the beaches, continually thwarted. Kenneth Branagh is in this thread as a senior naval officer both overseeing the operation, and explaining chillingly that Britain can only commit limited resources to the rescue … the planes and ships are needed for the forthcoming bigger battle if Britain is invaded. He channels Kenneth More’s plucky stoicism perfectly.
Kenneth Branagh as the senior naval officer
Then we have Sea, starting in Weymouth, Dorset … another 35 miles further from Dunkirk that even Poole is. This centres on a boat owner, played by Mark Rylance, and his son and a younger lad. They set out for Dunkirk. Rylance is a sublime actor as ever, underplayed, totally “real” in his calmness, and compassion. He has telling lines:
Men my age dictate this war — why should we be allowed to send our children to fight it?
Mark Rylance as the boat owner.
It’s very late before we discover his personal tragedy. When the flotilla of tiny boats appears at the beach, I had tears in the eyes patriotic fervour!
Rylance plus rescued shell-shocked soldier
Air centres on three Spifires, sent over to protect the beaches. We only see the three, and at the end one pilot is verbally abused “Where were you?” This was a common complaint about the RAF at Dunkirk. (In fact on just one day, the 27th May, the RAF shot down 38 German planes, losing 14 British planes, but the fighting was over the air bases, not over the beaches, so the soldiers didn’t see them.) The Spitfires sequence are the best aerial combat sequence I remember. The pilots are just eyes through goggles, and our view is their view. Tom Hardy is one of them and gets his name on the posters. The issue is range … by the time they have crossed the Channel, flying very low, they have limited air time. Presumably they flew across at a low speed to conserve fuel for action, so as they say ‘we’re sitting ducks.’.
The complexity is the time scale, and it works. The three stories, increasingly rapidly intercut, are working in completely different time scales. The land sequence has a day, an intervening night and another day. (On the blu-ray this has the onscreen title “Land: A week” which I don’t recall from the cinema) The sea sequence has them chugging along for what must be close to two days, but then is mainly happening over around thirty minutes. )On the blu-ray this has the title “Sea: A day”) The air sequence can’t be more than about twenty minutes, much of it focussing on just a couple of crucial minutes, but they all cut together and eventually meet. (On the blu-ray it says “Air: An hour).
LATER NOTE: I’d take issue with those onscreen titles which I think were additions to the DVD and blu-ray releases. The Land could be a week. The Sea? You can’t sail from Weymouth to Dunkirk in a boat that size easily in a day … especially as the Dunkirk rescue boats all went along hugging the English coast, and assembled around the Kent ports, then made the short Channel crossing. They didn’t do a diagonal run from Weymouth, let alone return to Weymouth as dusk falls. e.g. the Poole Lifeboat did the trip, sailing to Ramsgate as a base, which took over 24 hours. Also, a 1940 Spitfire was capable of 350 mph, and even conserving fuel by flying low and slow, it doesn’t take an hour to fly 30 miles.
Much has been said about the film in terms of Brexit, the leavers focussing on plucky Britain going it alone. The remainers focussing on the glory of seventy-two years of peace in Western Europe, and let’s sustain that. The Sunday Times review pointed out that Britain was not “alone” in that large numbers of Commonwealth troops were also involved. There are a couple of pointers in the film too, as at the end, when Kenneth Branagh is among the last party of four or five due to leave, and he says, ‘No, I’m waiting here for the French.’ Actually, the 100,000 evacuated French troops didn’t have a great time …about half of them were re-landed in Western France later and promptly captured. Looking on-line, apparently many Dutch small vessels that had escaped the German invasion also turned around and helped in the evacuation.
Is it good history? Emotionally, yes. It sets out to show three viewpoints, nameless as they are, of the chaos and urge to survive. No, in this film, we don’t know about the fate of the many taken prisoner-of-war (a seventh of the force) because the British and French had troops defending the enclave for the evacuation, and those defending the perimeter didn’t get out.
cold and wet much of the time!
There are also no stars, a conundrum when it comes to film awards. All of them must have been wet and cold much of the time. Tom Hardy as a pilot deserves an award. Fionn Whitehead is listed as ‘Tommy’ (a generic description, perhaps), Harry Styles is listed as “Alex” helping Mark Rylance (apparently “Mr Dawson”) on the small boat, and Damien Bonnard as French Soldier, though it takes 90 minutes for him to open his mouth so we know that. I suppose they’re leads. The pilots are barely seen full-face. Rylance has said its the first film he’s ever been in when he was the eldest member of the cast. The youth of the actors is so important to the movie … it was young men who went to fight. Incidentally, Patrick Bishop’s “Fighter Boys” on the pilots of the era is essential reading.
Mark Rylance
I guess our two great theatrical knights, Sir Mark Rylance and Sir Kenneth Branagh both deserve a shout for Best Supporting Actor. Mark Rylance has the better role, though probably not enough screentime to qualify for a leading actor award.
The soundtrack is a certainty.
*****
DVD RELEASE (December 19 th 2017)
I’ve just watched the 4K Blu-RAy version of the film. It’s even better. I do query whether those onscreen time indicators were in the original at the cinema. Also the 4K soundtrack is stunning, but really annoying. I have a Sony 4K player and matching new Sony AV amp. The loudest explosions cut sound around eight times during the film, for 2 or 3 seconds each, as the amplifier’s protection circuit cut in. That’s the amp … the speakers are powerful enough to handle it. They should have balanced it for domestic use. We had started with “60” on the volume meter, and kept reducing it until “40” but the same happened on the biggest bangs.
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN ON THIS BLOG
Inception
MARK RYLANCE ON THIS BLOG:
theatre …
Nice Fish by Mike Rylance & Louis Jenkins, West End, 2016
Farinelli & The King, by Claire Van Kampen, Wanamaker Playhouse, 2015
Richard III – Apollo 2012 Mark Rylance as Richard III
Twelfth Night – Apollo 2012 Mark Rylance as Olivia
Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth, West End
La Bête by David Hirson, West End, 2010
film and TV
Wolf Hall, TV Series (as Thomas Cromwell)
Bridge of Spies, directed by Steven Speilberg
KENNETH BRANAGH ON THIS BLOG:
theatre …
The Entertainer, Kenneth Branagh Company
The Winter’s Tale, Kenneth Branagh Company
Harlequinade, Kenneth Branagh Company
The Painkiller, by Francis Veber, adapted Sean Foley, Kenneth Branagh Company
(as director only)
All On Her Own by Terence Rattigan, Kenneth Branagh Company 2015
Romeo and Juliet – Branagh Company, 2016
Peter Viney's Blog 