By: ERKIN ESENGELDIEV
Staff Writer
“Dunkirk”, directed by insanely popular modern director Christopher Nolan and released in 2017, is a biopic that tells us about the evacuation of 338,000 soldiers from the French port of Dunkirk in May June of 1940. The movie is divided into three slowly intercepting parts that are shown parallelly – each depicting actions from a different perspective and with various time-frames. This unique style of storytelling is the main pull for the audience and probably the most impressive thing about this film.
Nolan is famous for his games with shifting time and space, incredible concepts, and twists that blow your mind. But, unfortunately – this is not enough for me to fall in love with this and many other of his movies. Even though I was very impressed with the technical and visual aspects of the movie (the action is really good in some parts) – I couldn’t find myself not being bored for the most part. This is a war movie – a subgenre of biopics and action that had never compelled me for its generally simplistic “war is bad” morals and over-cliched moments. I see what Nolan saw in this though – building a complex idea on the plain ground is a nice writing skill, and he succeeds in what he wants – an epic action ride with striking cinematography and ground-breaking scales, not focusing on characters but rather on images that make an impression on the viewer.
The movie’s characters are more of a collective organism rather than an individual. It makes a good point about how this movie lacks emotional connections between the characters and the viewer and makes some ask “Why should I care for them?”. I also think it’s one of Nolan’s writing flaws, as in lots of his movies he is more focused on “crazy” concepts and twisting the viewers’ minds rather than on building compelling and more or less relatable characters, which ultimately makes his works seem “heartless” and hard to rewatch.