Author| Thank you for the fish
In 1895, the Lumière brothers filmed the first film in film history, "The Train Stops" and thus opened the film history. There is no story in this movie, all the sounds are just piano music played by a side person with the screen, but during the screening, the scared audience retreated, thinking that the train was really about to hit.
Although "Train in the Station" seems to be an influential segment with little meaning for discussion now, it can basically be said to have no reference value for the creation of filmmakers, but it is the most perfect embodiment of the ultimate meaning of the movie. In my opinion, this meaning is pure experience. The audience’s fear of the train approaching is the initial and final interpretation of the experience.
To experience this, there is no need for so-called dramatic tension, no relationship between characters and even the story can be second, but the experience can carry a lot of emotions and complex themes.
Experience is not a visual bombardment, an emotional serial crit, an experience is a kind of emotion that you can put yourself in, whether it is fear, laughter, touch, tension, at least in my opinion, experience is a movie An immersive experience for the audience.
And those movies that amplify the experience are actually what we call those minimalist movies.
The "Gravity" and "The Moon" of the previous few years can be regarded as representative works of minimalism. They have a magnified sense of suffocation and a magnified sense of loneliness. They are all quite good works. From my point of view, minimalism is the centralization of the senses, allowing your attention to be more focused on a very small level, thus bringing you a relatively single but more contagious viewing experience.
And this year, Nolan took the experience to the extreme with a "Dunkirk".
During the period when "Dunkirk" was released, the discussion about the film never ended. Whether Nolan is a god or a craftsman, whether the film is the best or the worst in Nolan's career, whether the film is excellent or boring In fact, these are all public and reasonable, and all the discussions have nothing to do with me. Today I also want to talk to you about my love and reasons for this movie.
Regarding "Dunkirk", my personal opinion is very simple. This is Nolan’s most powerful work in his personal resume. It is not the best-looking, not the most entertaining, not the most popular, but the most powerful, and this is the one A movie born for the big screen is a movie that loses its viewing value after leaving the cinema.
For many years, Nolan has been exploring the ceiling of the play with a serious creative attitude, and has the most simple audiovisual language to create a distinctive visual spectacle. All this makes him the most talented director under the Hollywood system. However, in terms of personal expression, he has always been a craftsman, not a great man. It was not until the appearance of "Dunkirk" that we discovered that Nolan's efforts for so many years have been very personal for this film. His works are foreshadowing, and years of exploration have allowed him to become a god.
War movie itself is a very difficult subject to shoot. Whether it is the display of war killings, the transmission of anti-war connotation, the display of the inner character of the character or the grasp of the scale of the story, the overly prominent scenes are likely to be regarded as renderings. The pleasure of killing, showing too much suffering may be described as a consumption tragedy by others, and history itself is a matter that has been spoiled, and it is even more difficult to create suspense on the basis of respecting the facts, but promise Lan's unusual path created a new set of new language for war-themed movies.
"Dunkirk" is a very simple movie, it only tells a survival story, and Nolan did not make a war film, as he said, at least in my opinion, "Dunkerk" "Erke" is a thriller horror film with an escape theme.
If an ordinary director shoots "Dunkirk", the film is likely to be a traditional war film with an hour of foreplay and a five-minute escape. Most people will construct the various encounters of the British and French coalition forces before they go to Dunkirk, adding many The cruel plot of war, and then the third act of the movie focuses on the process of the retreat, interspersed with various sensational and visual spectacles. However, Nolan did not do this. He took the risk of shooting the third act of a movie that ordinary directors might think of into a complete movie.
There is no need for background explanation, no character history, and even a few words about the characters. Nolan is so willful to abandon all the logic of Hollywood dramas in the past so that the audience can completely focus on the movie. Above the "this time, this place, this person" in.
Although the film has three story lines, that is, the three perspectives of "sea, land and air", Nolan did not want to use these three story lines to form a macro perspective of a big retreat, but uses three closed or even single perspectives. To a certain extent, in addition to the emotion of survival in the war and the connection between the fate of the little people and their choices in the big background, it completely ignores the intervention of the state machine, and does not show the strategizing of the military strategists. Nolan cares more about the characters. Their fate and their desire to go home have nothing to do with the country or the army.
After all, the value of war is far inferior to the value of life.
Therefore, in the film, we saw the plot where the soldier with the most dramas "do everything possible" to survive. We saw the heroic pilot who saved everyone or could not escape the fate of being captured by the Nazis. We watched with passion and wanted to go. Dunkirk rescued the 17-year-old who died unexpectedly during the rescue process and did not have any effect on the rescue. What Nolan showed us was a group of ordinary people who were involved in the vortex of war. They are not war heroes, not every day. The soldiers who shouted for victory did not have the ability to fight with one enemy and ten. Their destiny was not in their own hands, but in the hands of others and the times.
To a certain extent, Nolan restores the truest appearance of those who participated in the war. They know very little about the war, or even what they are doing. They are driven by a belief, but more wishes are still alive. They thought that this battle was lost, but they didn't know that survival was the greatest victory.
From another perspective, "Dunkirk" can be regarded as a thriller and horror film. This time, Nolan worked hard this time and rendered the feeling of depression and destruction of the dark cloud over the city in the whole film. The sense of despair that there is nowhere to escape, the huge beach, the silverless sea, every place may be your burial place, you don’t know where the enemies come from, you don’t know when they appear, and you haven’t even tried to fight back. There is room for this kind of character setting, which is surprisingly consistent with those of horror movies.
Every encounter of the characters makes you feel more desperate. A group of lambs to be slaughtered hides from the Tibetans and panic. I think in reality, it is difficult to have a situation more terrifying than this.
Moreover, Nolan completed the most perfect collaboration with Hans Zimmer in his personal history. In the past Nolan works, Hans Zimmer contributed a melodic and emotional soundtrack, especially the orchestral music in "Interstellar" And the bloody melody in "The Dark Knight", but this time, Nolan let Hans Zimmer's soundtrack be integrated into the story as a melody sound effect, and it has become an integral part of the movie in a true sense. Basically, every part of the movie There is a soundtrack every minute and every second. It is the character's nervous heartbeat, cramped breathing, and tinnitus after bombing. This time, Hans Zimmer, who no longer pursues melody, has completed another leap in his personal career.
However, although "Dunkirk" is a simple movie, it is also Nolan's least simple movie. The most interesting part of the film is that time is used as the protagonist to string together "week", "day" and The three story lines of "One Hour" make the story's sense of hierarchy and suspense very prominent. After "Fatal Magic", Nolan also played another clever narrative method, and this method really did not brush twice. Can't fully appreciate its essence.
After all, this time Nolan really restored the meaning of the movie to its original state. He made me feel the fear of war in such a specific way, and made my heartbeat with the character speed up for more than a hundred minutes. Let me experience the long-lost sense of suffocation on the big screen, and left me a huge aftertaste after the abrupt end.
For Nolan, who has been exploring time, I believe time will prove the value of this film.
I really feel so happy to be able to witness the birth of a master in this mediocre era!
Extended reading
In addition to Nolan's "Dunkirk", these 10 new films are also worth looking forward to
Looking back, despair and hope——10 moments of "Dunkirk"
· THE END · This is the 463th issue of " Wo n't Disperse", and it has been read three times.
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