Butler's Cinema Scene

“DUNKIRK”  My rating: B

105 minutes  | MPAA rating: PG-13

Largely jettisoning character development and conventional exposition in favor of a you-are-there immersion, Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” is clearly a descendent of “The Longest Day,” producer Darryl F. Zanuck’s massive 1962 recreation of the D-Day invasion.

It moves swiftly and explains little, weaving together three story lines in a chronologically jumbled narrative that covers a week’s worth of history as the British nation rallies to rescue more than 300,000 troops trapped by Germans on the French coast in the early years of World War II.

Nolan’s unconventional storytelling is simultaneously confusing and compelling.  It’s disconcerting to jump back and forth between a daytime aerial dogfight and a nighttime sea illuminated by fires and explosions. Don’t expect an explanation of what’s going on.

But by eschewing a linear narrative Nolan is able to ramp up the tension, zigging and zagging between cliffhanger moments as various characters fight to survive.

The first of these tales is set among the soldiers crowded on the beach, sitting ducks for the German pilots who seem to control the sky.

A British naval commander (Kenneth Branagh) desperately coordinates an evacuation that relies on the Mole, the sole pier in water deep enough to accommodate a large ship.

Most of this sequence centers on a young soldier (Fionn Whitehead) who is desperate to save himself. He poses as a stretcher bearer, hoping to get aboard a medical ship being loaded with the wounded. He’s fortunate enough to take refuge in an evacuation ship, but it is torpedoed and he must return to shore. He eventually joins another unit taking refuge in the hold of a beached trawler…they’re hoping for high tide to take them to sea while the boat becomes a target for Nazi marksmen.

Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy

The second narrative thread focuses on a British husband and father (Mark Rylance), who with his teenage son (Tom Glynn-Carney) and a school friend (Barry Keoghan) take off in the family pleasure boat, answering their government’s call for an armada of small civilian craft to cross the channel to Dunkirk to pick up soldiers.

Their journey across the sea is made even more perilous when they rescue a shell-shocked soldier (Cillian Murphy), the sole survivor of a sunken ship who is terrified of returning to the deadly French coast.

Finally there’s a virtually wordless sequence set in the sky over Dunkirk where two RAF Spitfire pilots (Tom Hardy, Jack Lowden) take on the Luftwaffe in a series of hair-raising combats.

At points in Nolan’s screenplay these three tale intersect. In interviews Nolan has explained that the RAF sequence unfolds over one hour, the civilian boat segment over one day, and the scenes on the beach over an entire week — though that might not at first be obvious to viewers.

Tom Hardy

At its best “Dunkirk” is a nail-biter of beautifully choreographed action, none so breathtaking as the aerial dogfight ballets (the cinematography is by Hoyte Van Hoytema, though it’s impossible to determine what is actual photography and what post-production tinkering).

There’s a nightmarish scene set below decks of a sinking ship and ghastly carnage as German planes strafe evacuees crammed helplessly on a narrow pier.

But this isn’t really an actor’s film.  This is Nolan seeing how many balls he can keep up in the air.

Still, Branagh is always compelling, and pop star Harry Styles acquits himself well in the surprisingly complex role of a Tommy who’s willing to sacrifice his comrades to ensure his own survival.  Rylance exudes stiff-upper-lip decency as the civilian who risks all to save his fellow Englishman.

Some sort of special mention must be made of Hardy, who spends most of the film with only his eyes visible behind his pilot’s mask, and yet nails his character’s thoughts and emotions with breathtaking economy.

So, is “Dunkirk” a great movie?  No, largely because Nolan’s vision in this instance gives us skin-deep characters, many of whom we don’t get to know well enough to pick out of a crowded shot.

But as a gripping and even inspiring bit of history, the film gets the job done.

| Robert W. Butler