Dunkirk (Summer 2017) directed by Christopher Nolan

MookJong said:
Twist!

Did you not notice that he was swapping uniforms and burying the evidence when Tommy first spotted him? There was no doubt in my mind what was happening at that moment. Tommy knew and was covering for him all the way, hence the "tell him" moment. The reason they didn't really speak is because they didn't really have a common language. He stayed up top on the ship so he didn't have to speak to anyone in the hull.

If you see it again I think you will wonder how you missed it! It was all a sub plot of excitement wondering when he would get rumbled!
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I assumed he was swapping his boots for better ones from a dead guy ! I'm sure we've seen that before in things like Band of Brothers.
 
DrToffnar said:
Still not entirely sure whether I liked the time scale mechanic. I thought it was interesting, but a little convoluted. Didn't feel as though it really added anything.
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I think on a second watch it would work a lot better. It took till well into the film to realise the way the 3 time lines were emphasising the race against time. It was a split between land, sea, air but you could look at it as foot, boat, plane in their relative speeds.

The RAF were racing to the rescue but it wasn't always clear because of the time line. On a second watch the "1 Hour" would be a lot more powerful I think.
 
MookJong said:
I think on a second watch it would work a lot better. It took till well into the film to realise the way the 3 time lines were emphasising the race against time. It was a split between land, sea, air but you could look at it as foot, boat, plane in their relative speeds.

The RAF were racing to the rescue but it wasn't always clear because of the time line. On a second watch the "1 Hour" would be a lot more powerful I think.
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Yeah perhaps. I got what it was doing almost straight away, but thought it was often poorly communicated. I never really felt the 'race against time' thing so many have spoken about. Whilst I know the lack of any solid enemy presense is mostly historically accurate, I felt it detracted from that sense of creeping dread the film kept trying to push on me.
 
Spoilers about actual history - Not the movie:

I know it's historical fact that Hitler stopped his Tanks from advancing on the armies of France and Britain.

I wonder how different the War Would have been if he had let them have a go as well? Those soldiers were sitting ducks
 
VincentHanna said:
Spoilers about actual history - Not the movie:

I know it's historical fact that Hitler stopped his Tanks from advancing on the armies of France and Britain.

I wonder how different the War Would have been if he had let them have a go as well? Those soldiers were sitting ducks
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Finished a few books about Dunkirk this year. They pretty unanimously state that halting the Panzer divisions around Dunkirk was a turning point in the second world war and one of Hitlers KEY mistakes. It was only at Goering's insistence that he sent the Luftwaffe in, though many where stopped by the RAF South and West of Dunkirk (hence why the BEF soldiers at Dunkirk where so frustrated, thinking they'd simply not arrived).

Most historians agree that if the Panzers had reached Dunkirk and eliminated/captured the BEF, an invasion of Britain would have likely followed within a year.
 
Second viewing of this last night, its that good.

Little dialogue, zero gore, and it still manages to give a frightening account of the events at Dunkirk.

As another poster said, my heart manages to stay in my mouth the entirety of the movie. Zimmer's soundtrack is a large part of that I am sure.
 
Did anyone else jump when certain things happened? I lept a few times I was so on edge, my wife was ok for a while and then started to join in lol.

I was so on edge I jumped when Cillian Murphy knocked the cup of tea out of Peters hand! felt like a right plum.

Wife leaped a mile when the first bullet came through the Dutch boats hull, that one didn't get me though
 
MookJong said:
Did anyone else jump when certain things happened? I lept a few times I was so on edge, my wife was ok for a while and then started to join in lol.

I was so on edge I jumped when Cillian Murphy knocked the cup of tea out of Peters hand! felt like a right plum.

Wife leaped a mile when the first bullet came through the Dutch boats hull, that one didn't get me though
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The very first shot got most people in the Imax showing I was in to jump.
 
Saw this yesterday - was pretty good by any measure but my preference, in terms of entertainment, would be to have a more traditional 'narrative'.

I feel it did a great job in capturing a somber mood and was respectful of the heroic efforts of those involved. The cinematography / soundtrack was also great. Nevertheless, I felt a bit detached from it. The whole 'deer hunter' thing of 'show the home life, then the war, then the return to reality' has been done to death so whilst I wouldn't have preferred that, I would have liked more character development, for the sake of entertainment.

I don't really have anything negative to say but I don't feel inclined to watch it again any time soon, so YMMV.

My rating as a film (all things considered) - 8.5/10
My personal enjoyment - 7.5/10
 
Nitefly said:
Saw this yesterday - was pretty good by any measure but my preference, in terms of entertainment, would be to have a more traditional 'narrative'.

Nevertheless, I felt a bit detached from it. The whole 'deer hunter' thing of 'show the home life, then the war, then the return to reality' has been done to death so whilst I wouldn't have preferred that, I would have liked more character development, for the sake of entertainment.
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I didn't need it.

Weirdly I listened to the Chris Nolan interview with Simon Mayo this morning on the way to work having seen the film yesterday and his words were along the line of "The girl back home thing has been done to death, I hope that people will empathise with the characters just because you want to see people survive in appalling circumstances"

Which is exactly how it worked for me whilst watching the film.
 
Agree with Vincent. Having the characters just 'be' is what made the thing so engaging. Any traditional character development would have detracted from the overall theme and style of the flick. I felt that any form of exposition would have pulled me straight out of that constant, ramping pace the film was striving for.

I can appreciate that it's a subjective thing though.
 
Saw this last night, phenomenal film. Througherly enjoyed it from start to finish. I saw it in Southampton Cinema De Lux, on one of their XPlus screens; my god the sound in this film is immense. The scene where you first see the three spitfires fly across the screen :D:D:D
 
Would a 13 mm rear turret heinkel 111 machine gun really fire so slow and sound that deep? Do .50 M2 sound like that?
That really got me in the film.
I'm sure it will win Oscars for sound mixing.
 
Efour said:
Would a 13 mm rear turret heinkel 111 machine gun really fire so slow and sound that deep? Do .50 M2 sound like that?
That really got me in the film.
I'm sure it will win Oscars for sound mixing.
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HE111 had a top rear manned MG as well as the fixed tail mount MG. I knew that much but your question sparked my interest as that was standout in the film to me amongst all the awesome sounds so I done some Internetting.
Here you go - http://i.imgur.com/TDDSbap.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG_17_machine_gun = 1200RPM

So yeah pretty slow :) Would guess the pilot wouldn't have much luck hitting any RAF fighters with that thing! Think you may have stumbled across an element of picky inaccuracy as they do seem excessively slow rate of fire in the movie? I'd maybe need watch again.

For example the wing mounted cannon on that era slight prior and leading to BoB intro on the E4 109 had 520RPM cannons. 20mm much higher velocity of course but it's for some perspective I guess.
 
Saw it last night and still absorbing it. I'm a big Nolan fan along with being a big WW2 and war movie buff in general.

Seeing it again Saturday and hoping a second viewing will allow me to decide where I stand on it more. I usually am very critical of films when I see them first then totally change my mind second viewing. Gotta say though, I walked out feeling a bit muted by it. I was hoping for a more conventional war film really. It felt experimental to me and I honestly thought the constant Hans Zimmer score in background ruined certain scenes. I usually adore Zimmer's work but this was not a score I liked at all myself. Music was overused in general I think.

It lacked any real battle sequence. The dog fights were brilliantly shot and believable though. I was just hoping for something more. Perhaps a battle on the ground too. Saying that though, I loved Mark Rylance and the little boat stuff. That was 90% of the dialogue in the film and all worked well. His character is, according to rumour, based loosely on this guy too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lightoller
 
Interesting that you disliked the score. I've sometimes thought that Zimmer's work in the other Nolan films he's done has been a bit OTT, some of the 'bwaaah' noises in Interstellar got a bit much (though I did love the use of an organ); if anything I'd describe his score in this as quite subtle and pared back compared to Interstellar and Inception.
 
nicktay2605 said:
Interesting that you disliked the score. I've sometimes thought that Zimmer's work in the other Nolan films he's done has been a bit OTT, some of the 'bwaaah' noises in Interstellar got a bit much (though I did love the use of an organ); if anything I'd describe his score in this as quite subtle and pared back compared to Interstellar and Inception.
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Not so much the score itself, which I was indifferent about, more the fact its usage was continuous. Pretty much the whole film had music playing in background. It got jarring for me. Took me away from the film, kinda breaking the fourth wall at times.

I agree about Interstellar too. I wasn't a fan of the music in that either.
 
Phonesis said:
Not so much the score itself, which I was indifferent about, more the fact its usage was continuous. Pretty much the whole film had music playing in background. It got jarring for me. Took me away from the film, kinda breaking the fourth wall at times.
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Totally agree. The soundtrack just kept on and on, didn't relent (not in 'war is relentless' kind of way, just headache inducing). Hated it. I tried to enjoy the movie, but this was one this that kept me from doing so.

The soundtracks to Intersteller and Inception was bang on though. Brilliant and perfectly suited the film and what was going on at the time.
 
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