m4st4 wrote:
Dunkirk - mini-(dead tired) review
Dunkirk is the first film by director Christopher Nolan that is on the mastery filmmaking level equal to that of our greatest cinematic legends: Lean, Ford, Kurosawa, Kubrick, to name the few. That thought was very clear in my mind somewhere around the first quarter of the movie, and it literally made me smile, this widest grin on my silly face. Of course, I continued being utterly amazed by the precision mechanism that was the driving force of the spectacle, also completely terrified by the events on the big screen (thanks a lot, Hans Zimmer). Dunkirk is superbly edited and, finally, Nolan here manages to pull off that perfect synchronization of time and space. He's been playing with ticking narrative bombs and perspective ever since Memento, and Inception, along with Interstellar, were his most recent examples of how to make it work on a grand scale, whereas The Dark Knight Rises often went in another direction, by doing it the the right way only sporadically. Fret not, in Dunkirk everything, almost frighteningly, works. And not just that, it's elevated to a completely different level, we are now witnessing the birth of a new era for Christopher Nolan. Dunkirk might be his 2001, Lawrence of Arabia, Ran... Zodiac. Whatever comes next (please be Bond in a not so distant future) is expected to meet the newest challenge face to face. I won't talk about the stuff you folks have already talked about for over a week now, how the characters are in service of a grand theme, and how there are no immediate favorites because everyone did their best to deliver the most sincere human flaws, and heroics. But I will say this: Farrier is the best Spitfire pilot ever and easily wins the show and you know it tra-la-la-la.
So many beautiful and unexpected moments in the film, both in the script and visually; Hoyte van Hoytema is a serious rival to Deakins this year. There are at least a dozen moments where I literally gasped in awe of the scenery, especially during knuckle biting dogfights. The fact that you don't even see the enemy but still feel them breathing right there near the end of the frame was a truly inspiring choice that will make quite a few seasoned filmmakers jealous this year, I'm sure.
I also feel like this film gave me everything during my first viewing and, unlike literally every other Nolan movie, it's already deeply imprinted in my brain. There's no sweet mess and ear buzzing, the need to immediately watch it again just to connect the dots. Instead I only feel this strange serenity. Perhaps it's what happens when you go to cinema with zero expectations and leave the seat not just completely satisfied with the outcome, but also proud that one of your favorite directors, for a lack of better term - 'has reached supersayan form right before your eyes'.
VERDICT: 10/10*
*of course it's a perfect 10 don't be ridiculous, no decimals for me with this one
