Review A Movie You Have Watched Recently: Dunkirk

Dunkirk
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Dunkirk
Dunkirk is a movie that was directed by Christopher Nolan and released in 2017. The movie was well received, and a majority of the reviewers thought Nolan and his team did a remarkable job. The movie takes an unorthodox path and instead of embracing the normalcy often depicted in movies opts to engage a few not-so-common cues. Dunkirk is a story about the rescue of more than three hundred thousand British and French soldiers who had been stuck in Dunkirk during the Second World War. The Germans soldiers led by Hitler had decimated the allied forces and had pushed them towards the shores of a beach at Dunkirk. What was left was one last push to annihilate both the French and British soldiers. However, the heroic actions of some civilians meant that the British and French soldiers could live to fight another day. Nolan decided to document this occasion and instead of focusing on the war or highlighting some characters, he opted to showcase the braveness of the soldiers as they waited for their trips back home and into safety as well as the braveness of the civilians as well as that of the few air force soldiers who were still engaging the Germans. As it came to be, the preservation of the British’s fighting force came to be crucial for the preservation of Great Britain as well as the ensuing outcome of the Second World War. From the images to the sounds used as well as heroic actions captured, this movie is indeed a masterpiece and worth a few Oscars.
One notable difference in the movie is how it fails to delineate a majority of the characters by giving some background information or through description. Characters evolve in the movie and sometimes get lost in the big crowds or like some did in water or smoke. Nolan also allows certain segments to play out for minutes without any dialogue noted something which many reviewers would agree is uncommon even in other Nolan’s works. As one watches the movie, it also becomes clear that settling your eye on one particular thing will not necessarily mean that the action is happening there. Some shots are held longer as the audience is allowed to absorb the moment and engage in what is happening. For example, from 6:17 to 6:33 when the soldiers are standing at the beach waiting for their ride back home. Everything seems peaceful and quiet and for a second one is led to believe that finally, something good is about to happen. At first, the audience is led to believe that the movie will exalt a single character and like always provide a heroic ending as the actions of one man helps to change the plight of the soldiers. When the movie starts, one soldier, Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) manages to escape from the Germans, and one could be led to think that the movie will take such a turn, but nothing could be further from the truth.
According to Seitz (2017), “Dunkirk treats every person on that beach and in assorted nearby planes and boats as part of a collective organism, less interesting for their biographical details than for the roles they play in the drama of history, however large or small...