Dunkirk (2017)

Background: The Second World War and my family go a long way back, members of my family took part in the war on behalf of the British. My grandfather himself had a fortuitous escape when the Japanese bombed Vizag harbour and Vizag thermal power plant on April 6th, 1942. The war and its stories have ever since then, been a source of discussion in my family. Being inquisitive about history, I spent a lot of time trying to know about various facets of the war including watching whatever movies or documentaries I could lay my hands on. However, I have never read or watched anything about Dunkirk until I saw the movie. This was fresh territory for me and I wanted to approach the movie with a clean slate to know more about history (which I confess wasn't a very bright idea considering how well history is manipulated in movies).

Plot Setting: It's May 1940, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg have all fallen to the German Offensive. France is on its way down and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) along with other allied forces have been driven to Dunkirk on the coast of the English Channel (see the map below). Only a speedy evacuation from the Dunkirk coast can save the army which is surrounded on all the sides by advancing German contingents. The rescue is rendered almost impossible by the destruction of the Dunkirk port and the large sandy beaches which prevent large vessels from landing on the shores.  After the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) wreaks havoc on the vessels sent for evacuation, Operation Dynamo involving civilian boats is launched to evacuate the armies by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The movie starts with the initiation of the operation and shows how it all culminated while the war raged on the land, the sea and the air.

Dunkirk on the French Coast

Plot: The plot unfolds on three parallel tracks:

Land: Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), a young British soldier reaches the Dunkirk coast after narrowly escaping a German ambush. Tommy's sole objective is to get off the coast and he even poses as a rescuer to board a hospital ship. The ship however is sunk and Tommy's cycle of shipped and shipwrecked begins.

Water: After receiving word that civilian boats need to step in for bringing in the troops, Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance) sets off on a rescue expedition along with his teenage son and his son's best friend. Along the way they save a British Soldier (Cillian Murphy) from a ravaged ship. The soldier just wants to get home and wants no part of the rescue mission whereas Dawson is determined to stay the course.

Air: During a skirmish with the Luftwaffe, Farrier (Tom Hardy) of the Royal Air Force notices that his fuel gauge has been damaged. With a lot of flying to do, Farrier relies on his fellow pilot to keep track of the fuel reserves. When his fellow pilot is shot down, Farrier decides to leave it all on the line to save the incoming ships from a terrible Luftwaffe assault.

Dunkirk - 2017 (Credits: Federalist.com)

My Thoughts: It takes guts to make a movie like Dunkirk. Christopher Nolan, could have shaped this movie into a commentary on history, could have presented it as a heroic saga of cornered soldiers or could have taken creative license to mould it into a melodrama (like Pearl Harbor). Nolan instead plunges right into the story capturing events as they unfold through the eyes of the characters. I've said before in one of my reviews that you need characters to root for when you see a movie. Dunkirk turns that argument on its head by presenting the location itself as the main character. It's the location which is the centre of the struggle and the location which inspires courage and cowardice in each character. Dunkirk is the soul of the movie and the only source of 'Nirvana' for its characters.

All the principal characters in Dunkirk are fictitious but the best part is none of them have any back story. The lack of a back story allows you to only know these characters through their actions at Dunkirk and Dunkirk in turn is shaped by the actions of these men. Not all the actions are gallant, there is cowardice, disenchantment, despair and downright meanness. In a war with few heroes there are several who want to save their own lives at the cost of others. There is no glory in this war which turns a man into an animal and strips him of the very humanity which separates him from his four-legged counterpart. It's men like these who need to be saved in the hope that they might turn around and save the honour of the country when the time comes. Dunkirk presents this paradox very well and underlines the fact that the side which won need not necessarily have all the good people.

History shows that the success of the rescue efforts at Dunkirk proved to be a turning point in the war (hence the tagline 'The event that shaped our world'). I after watching the movie felt that no matter which side won, humanity ultimately lost. That's a loss which we are still recovering from. A war of that magnitude is not far away from us unless we embrace humanity and treat each other as equals. That was my takeaway from Dunkirk. Yours might be different, but that's what Dunkirk is all about, it allows you to draw your own conclusions and parallels.

Dunkirk might not be a movie to watch after a hard day's work. That's because it leaves you with deeply piercing questions just like the soldiers who returned to England from Dunkirk were left with. For me those questions went something like this "How far would we stoop when things are at their worst?" "What is life's worth when humanity ebbs away from it?”

People might criticize Dunkirk for the lack of depth in characterization, the docudrama feel and the absence of a prologue. I will applaud it for its determination to maintain the tension, its adherence to historical fact and the questions it raises. For the questions alone, I will rate it ‘Must Watch’.

Until Next Time,

Your Movie Buff,

J.J. Chaitanya