Things I Thought: I Didn't Really Like Dunkirk

On Saturday afternoon I went to watch Dunkirk. This was roughly around the time I realised I did not like Dunkirk. This surprised me. The trailers made it look great. It'd also garnered universal praise meaning my expectations were pretty high going in. Overall though, it left me feeling cold, much like a trip to Skegness beach on a blustery April weekend.

I realise Christopher Nolan is a bit of a big deal and at the risk of getting alienating his fans, he's not a filmmaker I've ever truly loved. I consider Memento to have been a formative film-watching experience but it's a film I've liked less and less over time. I have similar feelings about Inception. The only Nolan movies I do quite like are the Batman movies.

I feel my problem with Dunkirk is similar to Inception. It's a fantastic spectacle with a lot jaw-dropping cinematography but it's very cynical. It doesn't seem to trust the audience to take in more than just its sumptuous visuals and overall broad point about the madness of war. None of the characters are interesting or fleshed-out in the slightest. It feels like a movie trying really hard decrease the real emotional connections we might make to it.

Comparing it to another war movie that I really like, The Thin Red Line, makes me ponder that issue further. Both films are based on real event, but unlike Dunkirk, the former movie uses its war-setting to ask bigger questions. It isn't afraid of making us see its characters as individuals, human and flawed. In fact, from the very beginning, the dialogue muses on how individual differences make for unique attitudes towards war, never taking sides but simply extolling how war cannot be approached one way.

I don't expect Dunkirk to deal with the subject in the exact same way but I didn't leave my seat thinking much at all I suppose one thing you could say in its favour is it invokes a spirit of humanism. The story is centred around a rescue mission and therefore an act of selflessness. It shows the goodhearted nature of ordinary people, however it's a shame that it never wants to get into the heart of what makes those people tick.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I'm conflicted. I've seen people go absolutely barmy about the film, even comparing Nolan to Stanley Kubrick. Personally I don't feel Dunkirk gets anywhere close to the madness or bravado of either of Kubrick's war films. If anything, the film it most reminds me of most of all is Platoon - another war film that received a lot of adulation on release but whose critical opinion dwindled a lot over time.

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