TissueBox
Member
Just watched it. Not sure all the music was necessary. Or rather, if the tension was 80% the music lmao. >_<
Aww...*sniff*
Aww...*sniff*
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Dunkirk |OT| You can practically see it from here...home.
- Thread starter WadiumArcadium
- Start date
SneakersSO
Member
One of the best films i've ever seen (saw it in 70mm IMAX) and my new pick for Nolan's best. Its been a few days and it still haunts me.
sleepnaught
Member
6/10 at best for me. Found it slow and pretty boring, not at all intense.
Couple planes strafed at the beach and they showed a couple ships get bombed, one being shown 4-5 times. Whole lotta nothin.
Wow, this was an experience. This isn't the type of thing that I'd really want to see anything like it again, and you really leave the theater just feeling uneasy, but I think Nolan handled his mission statement here extremely well. I have no idea how to rank this with the other Nolan movies, but I think this might be his best-realized effort.
Saw it in IMAX. The sound was incredible.
Saw it in IMAX. The sound was incredible.
TheSkullPrince
Member
Saw it earlier. Really disappointed. Just an oddly paced film that felt directionless.
Why do you think that? Were you able to follow the 3 stories?
TheSkullPrince
Member
I was, but it felt like Nolan didn't do a good job of interweaving them. I realize that they all took place at different times, but there was this strange "dissonance" throughout the film.
Not saying that it was a mess, because it wasn't, but to me the movie didn't flow very well. Not saying that it was a bad film, but I felt it lacked this over-arching narrative structure.
True Savior
Member
I can't even imagine. That impersonal authenticity the film explores must really resonate with people who had to go through this shit.
darkwing-buck
Member
My goodness the sound design was ace in this. Haven't heard gun shots so loud and impactful in a movie since Mann's Heat.
Also I must say, the planes are fucking terrifying in this film. The use of sound design made the German Planes feel like, "jaws", every time they started revving towards the beach.
Also I must say, the planes are fucking terrifying in this film. The use of sound design made the German Planes feel like, "jaws", every time they started revving towards the beach.
itsbenoclock
Member
Great film overall, an 8/10 easily with the clever editing style. I think anyone expecting something more exciting from a film about a beach evacuation were probably hoping for too much. The way it was cut helped keep the momentum going and I personally felt immersed in the story more than most recent films I've seen. It'll be a film that is remembered for sure.
The reviewer loved it. The actual line from the review is "the fact that there are only a couple of women and no lead actors of color may rub some the wrong way."
Yeh, i didn't really like or dislike it, the weird time jumps were a bit odd at times, and pulled you out of the story at times, and honestly everything just felt so damn clean and sterile. And I fell asleep like twice watching it as well, I dunno, I actually liked Interstellar more than most, but Nolan is starting to veer off into Terrence Malick territory, and yeh Thin Red Line was awesome.
Still weird to pick up on.
Miles Quaritch
Member
Am I crazy or are there really
no named characters in this?
I watched it over the weekend and I can't for the life of me remember the name of a single character. Not even Tom Hardy's...
I watched it over the weekend and I can't for the life of me remember the name of a single character. Not even Tom Hardy's...
George is the only one I remember but I think for most of the players their names are never mentioned
"Frenchie"
But the no name stuff is part of what Nolan did on purpose. In wars we don't remember names
Hardy's character is referred to by name
by the other pilot who is watching him from the boat after being rescued. He says something like "come on Farrier" a couple of times
I really really enjoyed this movie. Great theater experience, and I think it is probably Nolan's best directing effort to date.
Other than the writing, the one that struck me as not so hot in this film was Nolan's reluctance to not using CGI in some spots. For example, and this could be due to my own ignorance, but I thought the smoke trails left by the planes after being shot down were not very convincing.
That being said, great movie. I hope Nolan continues to make leaner films with a focus more on visual storytelling. It's definitely his strong point.
Other than the writing, the one that struck me as not so hot in this film was Nolan's reluctance to not using CGI in some spots. For example, and this could be due to my own ignorance, but I thought the smoke trails left by the planes after being shot down were not very convincing.
That being said, great movie. I hope Nolan continues to make leaner films with a focus more on visual storytelling. It's definitely his strong point.
Saw it again today but this time in proper 70mm IMAX, my first experience ever. Firstly 70mm IMAX is the real deal although there are few things inherent to analogue projectors like the constant flickering that kind of annoying me. But overall this was great.
As for the movie itself, I was able to follow the film much better this time.
As for the movie itself, I was able to follow the film much better this time.
I still got confused over the timeline sometimes but I ended up understanding most of it near the end (the boat with holes still confused me over when it was actually moving and when it was stationary). I'm not sure exactly how much the movie gains from a non linear storytelling, but if it wasn't for the air PoV scenes (by far the most difficult to figure out the sequence of events for) it could've been totally been done in a linear structure without losing anything.
Because
the mole is anything in the beach and it takes a week, while the sea is anything in the well...sea and is over a day. But when the main guy with Harry Styles and co. go from the beach to sea, then back to beach and then back to sea....it becomes confusing over which part of the narrative it belongs to and you can't realistically place them in a proper sequence according to time easily..
No.
It's not ANYTHING on the beach/plane/boat.
It's following specific stories on land/water/air.
The mole is following Harry Styles and Co over a 7 day period on the beach, in the boats, on the trains, etc until they reach Woking.
It's not ANYTHING on the beach/plane/boat.
It's following specific stories on land/water/air.
The mole is following Harry Styles and Co over a 7 day period on the beach, in the boats, on the trains, etc until they reach Woking.
Well then there you have it, the source of confusion.
All air scenes are exclusive to "The air" narrative, all beach scenes are completely exclusive to "The mole narrative", but the sea scenes are not exclusive to "The Sea" narrative and can include "The mole" narrative as well.
I realise that it depends on the perspective of the characters, Hardy for Air, The father with kids for Sea and Harry Styles and co. for The Mole. But again, The Mole has an extra perspective in the form of the Navy officer to confuse it further. Remember how we see from his perspective that Harry Styles and his friends are leaving on a boat, when it's something that has already happened from the perspective of Harry Styles.
Basically whenever there is a switch in characters, location or time of day we expect a change in PoV and narrative. But because the The Mole gets split between two locations and two perspective, and is the only narrative that does it.....it causes the confusion.
Basically whenever there is a switch in characters, location or time of day we expect a change in PoV and narrative. But because the The Mole gets split between two locations and two perspective, and is the only narrative that does it.....it causes the confusion.
Albino_Yeti
Member
That was something else. Reallllly liked it! Those dogfights were fucking epic. And that other thread was right. This was one loooud movie haha. But I loved listening to those engines purr.
Also what was that USA Today article talking about? There were black French soldiers and British women in this movie.
Also what was that USA Today article talking about? There were black French soldiers and British women in this movie.
Angry Fork
Member
Man, this movie was kinda ...bad, really disappointing. I like Nolan a lot, all of his films are either really good, or great. You can poke holes in most of them or nitpick various things but for the most part the overall package tends to hold up well. I was super excited for this but there's just so many weird/wrong things.
The movie was cut so weird, there were more than a couple times I couldn't quite figure out what was going on like I just had a thin grasp of it, and it wasn't because the non-linear stuff was "too complex" or whatever but just because the editing didn't convey it in a good way. It just felt like a mess.
Then there were so many forced tension moments with Nolan using his trademark Zimmer score tension stuff, which usually works in his films, but in here it just doesn't to me except for a couple moments, and was used every 10-15 minutes. There's no sense of urgency on the beach, and beyond a few bomb drops it feels like there isn't really a war going on. I get that's how it actually happened but it's pretty dull for a movie.
The plane fights were just straight up bad, not exciting at all, very simple. Nolan has always been bad at action though so I'm not really surprised by this including in the batman movies. The editing/plane scene at the end was especially bad when
It didn't make any sense to me.
Stuff like the scene where
I loved the general lack of dialogue between the 2 soldiers trying to survive, a lot of the soldier stuff was just based on expressions which is fine I enjoyed that. It looked fine visually, but again not very exciting, nothing I haven't really seen before in other war movies. The non-linear structure doesn't really have a payoff either. We're just seeing the same scenes over and over, it's not like it's revealing something fresh and new on the 2nd run, it's just seeing it from a different camera angle.
When the
I feel like this had potential to be something good and completely missed the mark. Someone didn't challenge Nolan to tell him a lot of this stuff doesn't click together right. I get that this movie is gonna be overpraised like hell because Nolan, epic war drama, 70mm, big box office, etc. but I don't think it will stand the test of time when people look at it again once the hype dies. It's easily his worst movie. I wish he'd stay away from big budget action stuff which are his lesser efforts and go back to lower budget stuff. I could see him doing a really great spy thriller or crime film. Seeing him do a spy movie within a war backdrop would've been great.
The movie was cut so weird, there were more than a couple times I couldn't quite figure out what was going on like I just had a thin grasp of it, and it wasn't because the non-linear stuff was "too complex" or whatever but just because the editing didn't convey it in a good way. It just felt like a mess.
Then there were so many forced tension moments with Nolan using his trademark Zimmer score tension stuff, which usually works in his films, but in here it just doesn't to me except for a couple moments, and was used every 10-15 minutes. There's no sense of urgency on the beach, and beyond a few bomb drops it feels like there isn't really a war going on. I get that's how it actually happened but it's pretty dull for a movie.
The plane fights were just straight up bad, not exciting at all, very simple. Nolan has always been bad at action though so I'm not really surprised by this including in the batman movies. The editing/plane scene at the end was especially bad when
Tom Hardy is veering off after he runs out of gas, going lower as his plane is gliding, then it cuts to a plane coming out of the sky from above, much higher and further right than where we see Hardy go, and then ...the enemy plane just gets shot and falls out of nowhere to the cheers of everyone. How? Not only did we not see it happen on screen but it makes no sense based on the directions they were going and the fact that Hardy had no gas. It seems like an entirely different plane shot it down.
Stuff like the scene where
the civilian boats show up and the officer's eyes well up was not earned at all to me. They made it seem like this big triumphant moment and it didn't feel like that at all, it just felt like ...oh, ok. Didn't they say this would happen earlier in the movie? The officer literally says the order went out for volunteers, we knew this would happen, but the movie plays it up like it's a deus ex machina miracle.
I loved the general lack of dialogue between the 2 soldiers trying to survive, a lot of the soldier stuff was just based on expressions which is fine I enjoyed that. It looked fine visually, but again not very exciting, nothing I haven't really seen before in other war movies. The non-linear structure doesn't really have a payoff either. We're just seeing the same scenes over and over, it's not like it's revealing something fresh and new on the 2nd run, it's just seeing it from a different camera angle.
When the
frenchman is the last to leave the flooded ship, this didn't make sense to me either. Are we supposed to believe that everyone is screaming and getting off the ship one by one and he ...doesn't notice? He doesn't turn around at all to see what other people are doing through all of this? The movie tells us like at least 10 people get out and the guy has to tap him on the shoulder to tell him we're leaving. This was so weird, his death felt unearned and cheap/stupid.
I feel like this had potential to be something good and completely missed the mark. Someone didn't challenge Nolan to tell him a lot of this stuff doesn't click together right. I get that this movie is gonna be overpraised like hell because Nolan, epic war drama, 70mm, big box office, etc. but I don't think it will stand the test of time when people look at it again once the hype dies. It's easily his worst movie. I wish he'd stay away from big budget action stuff which are his lesser efforts and go back to lower budget stuff. I could see him doing a really great spy thriller or crime film. Seeing him do a spy movie within a war backdrop would've been great.
Vault Dweller 111
Member
Yeh film lost me a bit here. Can a brainy person explain wtf happened or was it just cinematic heroism?
He's right though. Seemed unnecessary as a third "story."
That made me dig my feet in when people say
the plane can't u-turn. Sure it can. The plane went back up in the air and behind the enemy plane a minute or two earlier so how difficult could a u-turn be?
Vault Dweller 111
Member
Haven't seen it yet, but my GF saw this the other day and commented on the lack of diversity in the cast. I told her that it was probably historically accurate that a lot of these events involved predominantly white males. I'm all for diversity on the screen, but if it's a historical event, it's important to depict the harsh realities of the time, regardless of the demographics involved.
But then that got me thinking about the UK's military in WW2. Was there ever a faction of black/non-white soldiers that fought for the British army? Would they have even fought in mainland Europe?
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Indians fought for them in World War 1 because they were a 'colony'. Not sure about WW2. Probably only in Africa.
Sorry, my history is limited to Battlefield 1 operations mode.
EDIT: From: Wikipedia.
iRAWRasaurus
Banned
Welp...that's a bait title for sure.
There were Indians at Dunkirk.
Source: Playing War Thunder
I'd have to rewatch the scene for specifics, but
you can absolutely turn and catch a plane coming from above you, but you need to sacrifice speed to do that. You can think of a plane's energy potential as speed+altitude, and you can trade one for the other (go lower to gain speed, or gain altitude but lose speed), etc). But turning usually dispenses more energy and ends up a net energy loss. Some planes retain energy better than others (when turning, or other maneuvers). Spitfires were some of the best turn fighters of the war (second only to the Zero for the most part, iirc). Stukas could turn well too but once it committed to a dive, it probably sacrificed a lot of its maneuverability.
So with no engine and doing that maneuver costing Hardy whatever energy (speed) he had left, he probably has no choice but to glide and land on the beach further away. Trying to turn or land nearby might have stalled and crashing his plane
So with no engine and doing that maneuver costing Hardy whatever energy (speed) he had left, he probably has no choice but to glide and land on the beach further away. Trying to turn or land nearby might have stalled and crashing his plane
Source: Playing War Thunder
Angry Fork
Member
I don't get how they were. They were shot in the simplest ways and lacked any punch/gut wrenching stuff. We don't know any of the characters so there's no reason to really care for them except "they're English", and most of what we see are cockpit shots.
There were a couple moments where the cockpit's crosshair is literally on the enemy plane and holds there for at least 3 seconds and Hardy doesn't shoot because Nolan wants to force drama or extend the scene longer or something. I don't know what the thought process was.
Don't get me wrong the shots of planes after they're hit veering down into the water and shit is great it looks nice but the actual dogfights themselves were not interesting at all to me. Like the plane scenes in 'The Aviator' were way more exciting and it's a Scorsese drama.
Interesting. Would be cool to see a movie centered around the British-Indian soldiers in WW2, or even The Indian Legion, who actually fought for the Axis.
Angry Fork
Member
Based on how I saw the scenes though they were edited/shown in a way that the german plane was much higher up and further right.
Even if we assume that Hardy waited until the plane reached low enough where hardy could turn and catch him (which I do think they tried to suggest), I still feel like it would've caused his plane to stall or something and crash in the water after taking down the german plane.
Instead he's just chilling afterwards gliding again. Where's the danger? Why aren't we shown the risk Hardy takes? We're not shown the actual maneuver. It's a weird missed opportunity. I never felt like Hardy was in any trouble in this movie and yet he's supposed to be the last line of defense for the soldiers. I'm not asking you personally here btw I'm just asking like general questions that I felt after watching.
iRAWRasaurus
Banned
Don't worry, someone will complain how there is a lack of white people in that movie.
The British had an empire and were a major power with multiple colonies (even if it was all coming to an end and the empire wasn't as strong as 19th century or early 20th century), ofcourse they had non white people fighting for them
All that money and resources and we never got any reparations for a war that wasn't ours to fight. If one is to say it was our war because we were part of the empire then that's even more unfair on us as after India got Independent the Brits just let us fend for ourselves and treated us like complete others. The Indians couldn't even travel freely to this land as a tourist (and still can't) that they had supposed ties to once India got independence, unless those Indians choose British nationality over Indian. Man colonisation was such a shitty thing in human history.
TwoDurans
"Never said I wasn't a hypocrite."
I'm going to spoiler some of this, because I used the film situation to explain why this was probably the most accurate depiction of aerial combat/maneuvering I've ever seen on film.
I actually trained on Corsairs which while vastly different from Spitfires, the avionics are fairly the same and literally everything you want to do requires altitude which means gas.
That's why the most tense shots inside his cockpit where when he increase his engine speed. He knew what he was doing, which was basically signing up for a suicide run.
When he ran out of gas it looks like he was at an altitude of ~300 ft based on how small the soldiers on the ground looked. That means he did have some mobility. Flaps are altered by gears and pullies, but since he lost the ability to speed up, turning the way he did cost him a significant amount of height.
He was on approach to make a soft landing, see also: crash (like his wingman did in the water) and could have hopped on a boat and escaped, but he used nearly all of his altitude turning to make that one final gun run on the approaching Stuka. This was why he closed his canopy and decided to go for an actual landing. He was too low to bail out without serious injury, and was also too low to turn again. Dipping his wings at that low of an altitue would have resulted in him slicing the ground and it would have likely cost him his life.
So he took a gamble and went for the landing in enemy territory, which didn't work out for him, but better to have a shot at survival than a pretty much guaranteed death if he tried to turn at a low altitude.
When he ran out of gas it looks like he was at an altitude of ~300 ft based on how small the soldiers on the ground looked. That means he did have some mobility. Flaps are altered by gears and pullies, but since he lost the ability to speed up, turning the way he did cost him a significant amount of height.
He was on approach to make a soft landing, see also: crash (like his wingman did in the water) and could have hopped on a boat and escaped, but he used nearly all of his altitude turning to make that one final gun run on the approaching Stuka. This was why he closed his canopy and decided to go for an actual landing. He was too low to bail out without serious injury, and was also too low to turn again. Dipping his wings at that low of an altitue would have resulted in him slicing the ground and it would have likely cost him his life.
So he took a gamble and went for the landing in enemy territory, which didn't work out for him, but better to have a shot at survival than a pretty much guaranteed death if he tried to turn at a low altitude.
It's not danger, it's acceptance. He knows he's fucked because he used the last of his altitude and has no choice but to ride it out.
Yep excelent analysis, planes aren't magic flying machines, they are subjected to the rules of physics and the movie made the most accurate display of what a dogfight is, no upbeat music like top gun, nor magical aiming that land shot's with dead on accuracy, so is that boring? maybe, I found tension on the frustration of trying to get the crossair aligned with the enemy plane and how that is hard in real life.
tiebreaker
Member
Saw the german preview, sadly at a standard theater, not even Dolby Atmos.
Well.... I guess I've set my expectation too high, but the movie didn't leave a big impression on me. The weird editing and the lack of central characters hurt the movie imo. The scores that are praised, can also be overbearing at times.
At least it was free.....
Well.... I guess I've set my expectation too high, but the movie didn't leave a big impression on me. The weird editing and the lack of central characters hurt the movie imo. The scores that are praised, can also be overbearing at times.
At least it was free.....
Saw it today in 70mm IMAX. It was a fantastic experience; pretty much sensory overload. It was like being on an incredibly loud rollercoaster. I felt the intensity from the very beginning and the dogfight scenes were astonishing on the gigantic screen.
However...I don't think it would work half as well on a normal size cinema screen or at home. This more than any of his films felt like it was built completely for IMAX. I don't think it has a great deal of substance to it but I don't think that was the aim of it. It set out to give you close to 2 hours of spectacle and intensity and to celebrate the heroism of those that were there. I think it did that. Anybody expecting something deeper might be disappointed.
I don't think I'll ever see a Nolan film that isn't enjoyable and watchable, but I also don't think he'll ever make anything that sticks with me beyond the cinema experience itself. But when it comes to seeing blockbuster-style films done with intelligence and that take advantage of the big screen, he's probably one of the best there has ever been.
I would give this 7 sploats out of a possible 10 for the IMAX version, nto sure about how it would translate elsewhere. Hope it does really well commercially though so that Warner Bros continue writing him blank cheques.
However...I don't think it would work half as well on a normal size cinema screen or at home. This more than any of his films felt like it was built completely for IMAX. I don't think it has a great deal of substance to it but I don't think that was the aim of it. It set out to give you close to 2 hours of spectacle and intensity and to celebrate the heroism of those that were there. I think it did that. Anybody expecting something deeper might be disappointed.
I don't think I'll ever see a Nolan film that isn't enjoyable and watchable, but I also don't think he'll ever make anything that sticks with me beyond the cinema experience itself. But when it comes to seeing blockbuster-style films done with intelligence and that take advantage of the big screen, he's probably one of the best there has ever been.
I would give this 7 sploats out of a possible 10 for the IMAX version, nto sure about how it would translate elsewhere. Hope it does really well commercially though so that Warner Bros continue writing him blank cheques.