Dunkirk

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Dunkirk

ThisIsWhyTrumpWon: Jun 22, 2017; by Smythe

This might be one of the loudest movie ever shown in theaters. Christ.

This movie is the anti-nolan Nolan film. It's not a Blockbuster in anyway. It's very stripped of any conventional storytelling methods he often uses. It avoids explaining everything and practices "show don't tell" exclusively almost to the point of detriment for the average movie goer.

This is clearly going to be received as one of if not the best movie he's ever done.

The main thing I got from this is that drat things sink fast and the Brits needed better boat design in the 1930s because any little thing would carve through them like Swiss cheese.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2017 06:56

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ThisIsWhyTrumpWon: Jun 22, 2017; by Smythe

i am the bird posted:

Public sentiment was anti-war for a long time after WW1 given the horrible, seemingly pointless nature of that conflict. It all depends on outcomes and whether or not the glamour of war stands up to how people perceive the realities thereof.

I'm not saying the glorification is inaccurate, but I do feel like the point will be missed by a lot of viewers largely because of how the ending unfolds.

The 'heartwarming' obit for George and the end of the Churchill speech both got cheers in my theater despite the fact that they're both blatant lies meant to help us get over the brutality we just watched.

I'm sure Nolan understands the irony there but a lot of his viewers won't. It's not meant to be a critique of his work. I just don't think a movie can overcome the seemingly inherent trap of glamorizing war.

I think that the movie doesn't glamorize war at all. I think it's very clear from the get go - with all these people trying to do everything they can to cheat their way's off the beach. And it's kind of cemented when the old man says "We Have a Duty" and how it plays out with Cillian Murphy's Character. Those are some of the only pieces of dialogue in this film.
"You shouldn't go to Dunkirk you should go home." "If we don't go to Dunkirk there won't be any home to go to."

It kind of continues with the french soldier stuff - and how scared and incapable of doing anything all the soldiers in the those scenes are shown to be. The old blind man kind of seals it.

The movie doesn't show any kind of heroism or war worship. I don't read the juxtaposition of Churchill's speech with the entire film's past events as spelling this out.

Sometimes you have to fight evil - you have to be willing to stand up to it. It's literally part of your duty as a human being. Despite all the horribleness involved in doing so sometimes. Even if it involves losing everything - like many of the figures in the movie end up doing. That doesn't make them any less right in their endeavor. That doesn't make war glorious.

I think that sentiment is best explained thusly:

quote:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2017 16:35

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