Dunkirk

I'll be the first one to admit that Dunkirk is a beautiful film and is masterfully shot but I can't say that I liked it. Christopher Nolan has a knack for playing with people's minds and he and Dunkirk is no exception. He begins the film with three different locations at three different time periods ranging from 1 week two three hours from the evacuation complete evacuation of Dunkirk. It is really interesting to watch how he combines the three different timelines to end the film at the exact point in each timeline. While interesting it is very confusing and took more than 20 minutes to understand that there he was using different timelines to tell the stories of the people who were on the beach, flying planes, and The Little Ships coming to the rescue. The performances are astounding throughout the film with the likes of Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh and Mark Rylance, even getting an acceptable performance out of One Direction singer Harry Styles. If you did not have the background of the film and even with it the film drags on and on trying to instill the idea of hopelessness felt by the soldiers but it is difficult to comprehend when the only German combatants that the audience sees are airplanes. There are also a number of dramatic scenes that appear to be instilled in the film to get an emotional response when they are completely unnecessary. One would think that the from the great mind of Christopher Nolan that he could come up with a better emotional gut punch then to easily debunked character deaths that have not had the proper character development for the audience to really care. Another disappointing aspect of the film is its portrayal of the French throughout the evacuation of Dunkirk. There are only two brief moments when it is acknowledged that the British did not care and actively resented the French while those same soldiers defended the rear lines and made it possible for the British to evacuate. And with a throwaway line at the end of the film by the Admiral commanding the beaches it is acknowledged that the British shoes original plan of abandoning the French is not right. It is simply acknowledged as a fact of war and only the strong survive. The ending of the film is also a disappointment as there is a masterful shot of Tom Hardy's pilot character performing a heroic gesture which would be the perfect ending only for Nolan to cut back to the soldier we have been following sitting on a train four five seconds with no more dialogue and a fade to black. The film was described to me as more of a documentary and I wholeheartedly agree except for the portrayal of survival is most important and not the lives of all. C+ rating