Sunday, July 23, 2017

War is a beautiful stranger - "Dunkirk" (2017)




One of the most beautiful war movies ever done, Nolan’s Dunkirk is also one of the strangest ones. Dialogues are scarce and the characters and stories we follow seem kind of generic, as if telling an abstract tale about British survival and heroism. The real story took place before the entrance of the US to WWII when nearly 350 thousand English and French soldiers were rescued from an almost sure death and abuse at the hands of the German troops. The real drama was impressive and thousands of soldiers could not make it alive. You can just imagine the grittiness of war must have been at its fullest. But there is no gritty here, the hundreds of soldiers onscreen look impeccably dressed and mostly clean – you can just gasp at what the costume budget must have been – as if coming directly from wardrobe room, perfectly armed and geared but scared to death from invisible Germans that besides a blind gunfight at the beginning only have a presence via the German Luftwaffe planes bombing ships and soldiers perfectly lined up as sitting ducks at the beach and attacking British Spitfire planes. I guess, Nolan’s goal was to show the war from the British side, the hopelessness, the fear and finally the relief of being rescued. I am not sure if he succeeds creating an emotional denunciation of the ravages of war though, given the austere view we get from the few characters we follow, but he certainly creates beautiful scenes on air and sea, with open landscapes and harrowing air battles that will become the reason why Dunkirk will be remembered. The large views of open skies and pristine seas make us involuntarily think of the catastrophic effects of war on the environment, and the resilience of humans and nature alike to its own efforts of self destruction –abstract thoughts of an almost abstract, impressionist film that will soar the spirits of artsy moviegoers but that probably will baffle all others.