Tag: Dunkirk

Dunkirk is dirtier than 1917

Posted on by victorfraga

[dropca]A[/dropcap]s soon as the trailer for Sam Mendes’ 1917 (2020) was released, the obvious comparisons with Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk (2017) began. Both films were about nameless, young British men struggling to survive amongst a cacophony of bombs and bullets. Both had top-drawer British directors attached and both focused on time as a crucial factor. Only one however, cast Harry Styles. But that’s not why Dunkirk is a far better, far more enduring film than 1917.

I will be the first to admit that 1917 is a tremendous cinematic achievement. An stomach-churning, anxiety-inducing thrill ride that does not let up. The cinematography is awe-inspiring and the journey is epic. But it’s missing something that Dunkirk has in spades, which is an urgent and compelling message. Dunkirk isn’t just a war movie, but also a film about the boundaries of morality in an extreme situation. The story is not one that just depicts the visceral experience of war but the philosophical, moral confusion too.

Take, for example, the scene with the young infantry hiding inside a beached trawler, waiting for the tide to help them evacuate. With the ship sinking into the water, they realise that somebody must be forced out or they will all drown. Who should they pick? It is a petrifying conundrum due to its simple lack of moral guidance. They then realise there is a Frenchman hiding in their midst. He is marked out by his accent. Should they choose him? Harry Styles certainly believes so until another soldier comes to the Frenchman’s defence. Whilst 1917 is busy chucking loud bangs and dizzying camera moves at its audience, Dunkirk sprinkles itself with moments that cut to the core of what it means to be good in times of war.

An unnamed soldier (Cillian Murphy) has seen the horrors on the beach. He is saved by a local boat, captained by Mr Dawson (Mark Rylance) and his son, George (Barry Keoghan), the shell-shocked soldier orders them to turn back home to England. Unfortunately, Mr Dawson and George want to continue, driven by what they believe is the right thing to do. This back and forth is something that is as tense as any battle scene. The soldier has to reconcile his fear of death with solidarity. What should he do? Is it ok to risk one’s life in such a way? Or is it foolish? The situation is exacerbated by the soldier’s accidental killing of George. When Mr. Dawson realises what happened, he doesn’t tell the soldier the truth. He only says that George is unconscious. It is a heartbreaking moment of empathy for the man who just killed his son.

Nolan’s treatment of time is also more effective than Mendes’s. 1917’s real time storytelling is an impressive feat, always keeping you immersed in the story, but it does not possess the same scale as Dunkirk. It is confined to a duration of two hours, which isn’t enough to conjure the full-scale horror of war. Cutting between three time zones, you get a feeling of a mass-scale, all-encompassing war that permeates its environment completely. 1917 uses time in order to make you feel war. Dunkirk uses time in order to make you understand war.

1917 has some breathtaking moments. The ghostly shootout in a burning city and the final run across No Man’s Land are heart-thumping and unforgettable for their mastery of the form. But the film never made me reflect. The good guys are good and the bad guys are bad. Nolan had loftier ambitions for his film. In the last moments of Dunkirk, it is revealed that the newspapers called George a hero. George was a young boy who was killed before his boat even got to Dunkirk. His death was the result of a completely avoidable mistake. His death didn’t help save anybody or serve to help people suffer less. Yet he is heralded as a hero. It is a poignant reminder of how we, as a society, justify arbitrary suffering.

1917 is a powerful reminder of how terrifying war might be, but it won’t be remembered in the same way Dunkirk will. Nolan’s film raises far more profound philosophical and moral questions.

The stills at the top and in the middle are from ‘Dunkirk’, while the picture on the bottom of this artcile if from ‘1917’

Hurricane

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

It’s too easy to take most British WW2 movies (e.g. Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan, 2017) and claim they bolster the idea of Brexit – Britain alone against the world, defeating the dastardly Germans and so on. Hurricane is different. Its Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots are refugees from the Polish Air Force, wiped out by the Luftwaffe in a mere three days and kept on ice by Britain’s xenophobic War Office following their arrival in England. When they’re finally allowed into the air, these Poles turn out to be much better fighter pilots than the majority of Brits who are being slaughtered by the enemy at an alarming rate. Indeed, it’s the Polish pilots that turn the Battle of Britain around.

Hurricane is named after the RAF’s most widely used fighter aircraft and those portrayed here, at least when flying, are computer generated. Much of the CG work has been carried out in India (nothing wrong with that) on the cheap. The aircraft looks like computer models partly because no-one’s bothered to dirty them up and partly because there’s no attempt at reflecting the weather on their metal surfaces as real flying aircraft surfaces would do. Consequently, the flying sequences have an air of unreality about them which a little more budgetary spending in the right places could easily have fixed.

Other elements more than compensate for the cost-cutting CG, however. The dogfight sequences are well put together and grippingly paced. The main characters are efficiently written and the film covers a lot of historical ground. The pilots speak Polish with subtitles when they’re alone together while the Brits speak English. There’s more than enough aerial combat to satisfy audiences, yet the scenes on the ground prove equally compelling – interaction between cocky Polish pilots who know they’re up to the job and members of the British command convinced the bloody foreigners are not, Poles fraternising with the native women and scenes in the air command bunker with personnel moving tokens representing groups of aircraft round a large table.

Welshman Iwan Rheon (from Game Of Thrones) else makes a fairly convincing Polish lead, but the surprise outstanding performance comes from decidedly carnal, command bunker girl Stefanie Martini who spends much of her free time pursuing pilots including the Poles. “A few years ago, I’d have been called a tart, but today I’m just a good sport.” she says enthusiastically.

If the film doesn’t make a big thing of British racism, it’s present nonetheless. Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) celebrations are overshadowed by the British government’s swift moves to send the Poles back home following a survey claiming 56% of Brits wanted this. That’s set against other, less racist images when Jan (Rheon) is helped down from dangling by his parachute from a street lamp by an old couple who invite him into their home, discuss their own son’s death in the conflict then feed the airman a thick and tasty sandwich. If the British establishment doesn’t like Poles much, the ordinary Brits pictured here get on perfectly well with them.

That’s a far cry from some of the anti-foreigner sentiment and the ascendancy of the far-right seen in this country since the Referendum. The suggestion here that immigrants to Britain can make a valuable contribution is refreshing indeed in the current political climate.

Hurricane is out in the UK on Friday, September 7th. Watch the film trailer below:

Cinema is Brexit’s BFF

Posted on by victorfraga

The past 12 months saw three major British war drama hit UK cinemas to a lot of noise. All three dealt with WW2. First came Jonathan Teplitzky’s Churchill last June, then the following month Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk was released, and finally Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour – with an Oscar-baiting performance by Gary Oldman, pictured below twice – was launched last Friday in cinemas across every corner of the country.

The fact that these three films take place during WW2 isn’t the only similarity they have. These movies also have a subliminal message of tub-thumping nationalism and anti-German resentment (and, by extension, anti-European) in common, which resonates with Brexiters. In other words, while not overtly pro-Brexit, these movies instill a sense of self-righteousness and moral superiority in the British people. The analogy is quite simple: the Germans are evil, Europe is under their control and therefore we must out.

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The writing is NOT on the wall

I’m not saying Teplitzky, Nolan and Wright are rabid nationalists and everyone who worked on these films is pro-Brexit. Subliminal messages are far more nuanced, often beyond the control of the filmmaker. They are driven by a much broader historical narrative that paints British soldiers and Churchill as heroes as the Germans as plain evil. There’s a dangerous Manichaeism, which conveniently omits the dark side of Churchill and the British Empire. It’s hardly surprising Nigel Farage (pictured at the top of this article) loved Dunkirk so much, and I would hazard a guess he would also like the other two films.

Churchill was not an nice human being. He was indeed an excellent war strategist, but also a ruthless one for that matter. He is directly responsible for the deaths of three million people in the Bengal famine of 1943. Churchill was driven by nationalistic values, not by solidarity with people in gas chambers. He was similar to Hitler on many levels: he was a racist, a vocal advocate of gassing and an outspoken supporter of eugenics (he once wrote: “I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be CUT OFF and sealed up before another year has passed”, in reference to “the unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes”).

It’s also a mistake to think Churchill was pro-European and would likely be anti-Brexit (I used to think this myself, until I was challenged by one of our sharp readers). Churchill indeed believed in a United States of Europe, but he did not envisage the UK being part of it. His imperialistic values did not fit in with European unity. He once famously said: “We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed. If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.”

All in all, our mainstream cinema lacks historical balance and perspective. The perpetual demonisation of Germans and celebration of “the greatest Briton ever” in British films has played an instrumental role in energising nationalists, thereby letting the ugly beasts of xenophobia, racism and Brexit prejudices out of the cage. And now they are out of control, and no one seems to know how to capture and lock them up again. Under the Brexit logic, Brits are celebrated as war heroes, while Europeans are denounced as ingrates.

Below are some thoughts on the three films mentioned above, and why they help to bang anti-German/European resentment and thereby stoke up the Brexit narrative:

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1. Churchill (Jonathan Teplitzky, 2017):

In terms of message, Churchill is not too different from your average BBC period drama, or a film you’d catch on the History Channel. It celebrates British superiority ad infinitum. It comes under the disguise of exposing the frail and errant side of a mighty leader, but ultimately the message is quite straight forward: “the greatest Briton of all times may have been a little shaky and moody, but he cared about our soldiers and knew how to win the War. Great lad! Britain rules!”

Churchill’s boundless altruism is also constructed in the film. He has the most profound and genuine concern for the lives of the British soldiers, and he’s even willing to make the wrong decision in order to spare human lives. The film conveniently forgets that Churchill wasn’t such a pure and kind human being, and that his altruism was highly selective.

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2. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan, 2017):

This is a movie about withdrawing from Europe, a heaven-sent analogy for frothing Brexiters. But that’s not all. It functions like a adrenaline-inducing video game or canticle, which can be easily misinterpreted. The Hans Zimmer electrifying soundtrack plays out at 140 bpm, in a tandem with your heart. Highly suggestible young people will undoubtedly leave the cinema subconsciously thinking: “wow, this is so cool. War is like a video game, what a wild ride, I want to be part of it”.

Plus there is no blood in the film, which was a conscious decision by Nolan so that he could get a PG13 certificate in the US and a 12A in the UK. These youngsters will think, again subconsciously: “war is not a bad thing at all. Worse that could happen is I will get covered in slime. I won’t get covered in blood”. That’s why a war movie should never be sanitised and made palatable to young people. These are the young people who Nigel Farage wants to recruit for his patriotic and xenophobic cause.

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3. Darkest Hour (Joe Wright, 2018):

According to this film, Churchill was a solo male figure who, in spite of his fellow parliamentarians’ doubts, stood up against a ruthless German superpower to guarantee Britain’s sovereignty. He even got a popular plebiscite mandate in an imaginary Underground sequence. Ever since the July 2016 Brexit referendum, the UK has faced an onslaught of modern Britain’s most idolised political hero. From polymer £5 notes to Churchill and Darkest Hour, there’s a creeping feeling that we’re gearing up for an epic battle.

It would be far more timely to examine Churchill’s flaws alongside his famed achievements. This is a man who spent his early political career opening concentration camps in sub-Saharan Africa, sending Black and Tan thugs after Irish Catholic civilians and advocating the use of chemical warfare against Kurdish revolutionaries in colonial Mesopotamia. This is a leader who clung onto the dying dregs of the British Empire for so long that he called for the death of Mahatma Gandhi and allowed 3 million people to starve in the 1943 Bengal famine. Is this really the sort of political legacy that 21st century post-Brexit Britain aspires to?

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Note: Richard Greenhill contributed to this piece.

Why did Nigel Farage like Dunkirk so much?

Posted on by victorfraga

Nigel Farage isn’t my favourite person. He epitomises the side of Britain with which I do not identify: racist, nationalistic, nostalgic of British Imperialism and displaying a smug and yet tacit sense of superiority. I believe in a diverse, tolerant, inclusive and internationalist Britain. A few days ago, I came a across a tweet from Nigel Farage recommending Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk (accompanied by the image above), a film which Jeremy Clarke had reviewed a couple of weeks earlier for DMovies. Farage said: “I urge every youngster to go out and watch Dunkirk“. On the other hand, our dirty reviewer described it as “a remarkable insight into the dirty side of being part of a war”. So I questioned myself: how is it that someone as reactionary as Nigel Farage liked such a subversive piece? I went to the cinema to see it for myself.

I found Dunkirk excruciatingly boring and cold. The video game language and characters without background and emotional depth made it impossible for me to relate to the film. But it’s not personal taste for cinema that I want to discuss here. It isn’t the historicity of the film either (which has also been questioned). I want to understand why is it that the film resonates with nationalists.

The simple answer of course is: this is a movie about withdrawing from Europe, a heaven-sent analogy for frothing Brexiters. But that’s not all. There’s another reason why Dunkirk has pleased Nigel Narage and most likely other Ukip and Conservative voters. It plays out like a adrenaline-inducing video game or canticle, which can be easily misinterpreted.

I’m not suggesting that everyone who enjoyed the film is a nationalist or a latent warmonger. I wouldn’t even challenge that the film is indeed dirty and subversive in some ways, like Jeremy argued. And I don’t even think that Christopher Nolan willfully endeavoured to make a film that appealed to nationalists, but that’s a risk he was willing to take by making a film that’s not clearly anti-war.

So what’s an anti-war movie?

Dunkirk is not an anti-war film, not at all. Once a film portrays war in a positive and engaging light (even if this engagement is in the shape of adrenaline-induced thrills instead of patriotic chants or more didactic political messages), there’s always a risk that reactionary pundits will seize and claim it in favour of their dubious nationalistic agenda.

War is repugnant and grotesque, and so should anti-war films be. Violence should never be airbrushed, blood should never be removed, and the conflict should never be glorified, romanticised or celebrated in any way whatsoever. Otherwise it can easily slip into a military apologia. A genuinely anti-war movie should never be a feel-good movie. It should be harrowing and disturbing because at war there are no victors. Or a mockery: that’s also a possibility for an anti-war movie.

Dunkirk, on the hand, works like a hypnotising video game. Not coincidentally, the cinema screening I attended was preceded by an advert of the game “Call of Duty WW2”. The Hans Zimmer electrifying soundtrack plays out at 140 bpm, in a tandem with your heart. I would hazard a guess that a Dunkirk theme park ride will follow soon. Highly suggestible young people will undoubtedly leave the cinema subconsciously thinking: “wow, this is so cool. War is like a video game, what a wild ride, I want to be part of it”. Often we don’t remember the content of a movie, yet we remember the sensation and feelings it triggered. This is why war movies can be so dangerous.

Plus there is no blood in the film, which was a conscious decision by Nolan so that he could get a PG13 certificate in the US and a 12A in the UK. These youngsters will think, again subconsciously: “war is not a bad thing at all. Worse that could happen is I will get covered in slime. I won’t get covered in blood”. That’s why a war movie should never be sanitised and made palatable to young people. They are the same people Nigel Farage wants to recruit for his patriotic and xenophobic cause.

The fact that Dunkirk is a film about evacuation, ie victims fleeing an attacker, does not make it anti-war, either. Instead it just makes it Manichaeistic, feeding the hero and the “good vs evil” narrative, therefore spurring animosity and historical rivalries. The Union Jack is to be seen several times, and the duty to “fight” is highlighted throughout Dunkirk.

My conclusion is very clear-cut: war is the maximum expression of nationalism. If you don’t want nationalists to embrace your film, then you must make it blatantly anti-war.

The anti-war battalion

Below is a small list of genuinely anti-war films that we recommend you watch, including one that’s out in cinemas right how (click on the film titles in order to accede to our review):

Dunkirk

Posted on by mjbstaging

British filmmaker Christopher Nolan – now one of the highest-grossing film directors in history, with the Dark Knight Trilogy under his belt – has created a complex and multilayered film that cleverly interweaves three separate narrative strands: 1) on land over a week a young soldier (Fionn Whitehead) after he arrives alone at Dunkirk beach and falls in with others (including the music superstar and heartthrob Harry Styles); 2) on sea over a day a small, requisitioned, civilian boat (crew: three) go to bring home trapped combatants; and 3) in the air over an hour three Spitfires fly a sortie. Nolan is fascinated by time and runs these in parallel so that an incident partly revealed in one strand is later retold in another revealing more. There’s a constant sense of the clock ticking differently in the three time frames: mind-bending and exhilarating stuff.

The impressive analogue 70mm IMAX version puts you in there as if you’re escaping death on the way to the beach or in a Spitfire cockpit shooting at/being shot at by the enemy. It has everything you expect from a big screen war movie that small scale drama Churchill lacks. It’s a remarkable insight into the dirty side of being part of a war. The issue is survival: if not everyone can be rescued, who will be? The top brass organising the operation led by Kenneth Branagh must confront this issue to transport the maximum number of men home.

For those who are not familiar the events, the film depicts the Dunkirk evacuation of Allied soldiers from the eponymous beaches and harbour of France, between May 26th and June 4th 1940. It is believed that the extremely risky and unexpectedly successful operation saved the 330,000 British, French, Belgian, and Canadian troops from almost certain death under the surrounding German Army. Hence the “Miracle at Dunkirk” accolade.

As in the best horror films, anyone can die at any time. Not that this is a horror film. English soldiers are gunned down by French friendly fire. Spitfire pilot Tom Hardy’s broken fuel gauge makes him reliant on the pilot in the next plane relaying how much fuel that plane has left. Civilian boat captain Mark Rylance sails into a war zone with no weaponry or means of defence so he can rescue combatants. Shell shocked soldier Cillian Murphy completely loses it and injures someone trying to help him.

Men trapped in a beached boat are fired on from outside the hull by unseen assailants. People are trapped in spaces large or small which water threatens to fill cutting off their air supply. Swimmers covered wholly or partially in oil from crashed aircraft are forced to choose between staying underwater and not breathing and coming up to breathe when an inferno rages above the surface. Life and death situations.

Nolan manages some worrying tilts at British society circa 1940 which resonate today. A young soldier reaches the beach and joins a queue to be told to go elsewhere as this line is reserved exclusively for the Grenadiers. Another soldier who doesn’t speak much is accused by others of being a German spy. And an airman who nearly drowned in action is asked by an embittered evacuee, “where were you when we needed you?” British conformism, value judgments and prejudice are alive and well in the fight for survival. But so too are heroism and being prepared to give one’s life in the fight for a better world. Britain, now as then, is both good and bad.

Dunkirk, however, is consistently good. In fact, it’s likely the most impressive film you’ll see this year. It’s out in the UK on Friday, July 21st (2017). See the analogue 70mm IMAX version at BFI Waterloo London, The Science Museum London or Vue Printworks Manchester if you can.

On Amazon Prime on Thursday, April 1st (2021). Also available on other platforms.

Watch Dunkirk‘s two IMAX trailers below:

And here:

And click here for our review of another British historical film set around the same time, and still out in some UK cinemas.