The film certainly had it's faults, but I thought it was rather well done considering the overall grandiose nature of the subject matter. I tend to give a little leniency on historical projects especially one set in the time period.
It's "A taste of Dunkirk" in my mind. I did two years, three months and thirteen days (~) in my first combat zone. To summarize that would have been ... difficult.
I can't even imagine. You definitely have a different lens than most. The editing portion of such a film must be a beast.
Not really. You have three threads, beach, boat and Spitfire with no engine.* They don't have to mesh to be effective. Each needs a beginning, a middle and and end. Then you decide which scenario works with the others at that point in the movie. *Seriously, check the last time it's on the screen.
I'll check it out. All I remember of the spitfire scenes is that he was coasting for quite a while. My father leaned over and whispered, 'Has time stood still or something?' Never noticed the engine.
First thing I thought was "Why an Airacobra?" As for the time, yeah, screen time doesn't relate to real time or the pilot would have had a few minutes while the Army lad would have been just sitting there most of the movie.
I think you misunderstand me. I like the film, and like the way it was done. It's the backdrop that fails. Look at actual photos; there weren't single file lines neatly queued up and widely spaced on the beaches, there were entire regiments in loose mobs covering the entire beach. The skyline was towering clouds of smoke, the beaches littered with garbage, discarded gear, vehicles. I'm sure too, the streets were not neat and tidy with a few propaganda leaflets scattered about, but full of broken windows and civilian discards/trash left by the fleeing people. Obviously, the days of Cecil B. DeMille are over, but that's where some clever CGI could have made the difference and given it a realistic backdrop. .
Prince Harry Wales said something on the radio this morning that is the essence of my beef with Nolan's Dunkirk. That is the key issue for me. Nolan wants us to have sympathy for his protagonists in the trapped BEF fleeing for their lies. Their leaders are ineffective or in the case of the shaking man out of control. Where is the respect? The BEF came out fighting - not shown at any point.
I was muy sympatico with the shell shocked guys. Most times it comes from a single event. On the beach that event went on for days.
Isn't that Prince Harry Windsor? Meanwhile. I agree wholeheartedly and thought Joe Wright caught the visuals much better in Atonement, but still had problems with the narrative tone. I think the narrative problem is the whole "lions led by donkeys" trope competing with the "saintly war fighter" trope in Hollywood. Both have some elements of truth, but as portrayed in most movies are a simplistic reductio ab adsurdam. Sadly, after his previous work I was hoping for some nuance from Nolan, but it simply wasn't there.
How interesting. I suppose when you are royal you can choose the surname you like. And Prince Henry of Wales would be a bit much to fit on a name tag.
I wanted to give you a like, but on reflection I can't even say it was OK. Just bought a copy today and eagerly watched it. Foolish me. It was beautifully shot and the individual stories were reasonably compelling, but the editing was abysmal. We would go from day to night then back to day again. I finally figured out it was not being told in a coherent time line after running out of any other reasonable explanation. A less sophisticated viewer might conclude that a Spitfire could fly for a day, a night, another day, a night and part of another day on 50 gallons of fuel...oh and shoot down half the Luftwaffe* with a endless supply ammo and one plane while in a terminal glide dive with a feathered engine. I debated buying this or Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. I made the wrong choice. Before this I would have wanted to see anything by Nolan, but fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. The audience and the men deserved a much better film, not a film that almost makes Pearl Harbor look like a Ken Burns documentary. * yeah I know they showed him shooting down the same plane from different perspectives at different times in the film....or at least I think I did. ** Gave you a like anyway
The movie told three different stories that required three different pacings. The soldier on the beach story couldn't be told at the same pace as the boat or the pilot. That seems to have confused a lot of people. It's the first time I've seen this system myself and the first time it was confusing until I caught on.
I wanted to like this film, but could not and I'm usually one of the first to defend a flawed war film if it had some redeeming characteristics but the structure was too much work. This is a real pity as I was looking forward to a modern counterpoint to SPR and Band of Brothers/Pacific from the British perspective. In truth there were four story lines, the Soldier, the Small Boats, the Spitfires and Kenneth Branaugh's Naval officer on the dock. Three of the four could have easily been told in the same pacing and if told differently even the Spitfire story could have been told at the same pace. The thing is the Spit story was superfluous to the overall subject. Think about it the real story of Dunkirk was the trapped troops, the little ships and the naval crews striving to rescue the trapped troops. The Spits should have been abstracted the way the naval crews were in this film. Nolan was trying to be too cute by half.
