I've never been too fond of Nolan, his movies are good, surprising, and entertaining, but that seems to end there. Especially after watching Jin Min's "Red Hot Chili Pepper" after "Inception", you will find that whether the repetition of creativity is intentional or not, at least in addition to the cool pictures and beautiful and compact editing narrative, the theme of the film is not. The depth and breadth of reach, Nolan can't compare with Jin Min.
Of course, Nolan doesn't have to compare with He Jinmin, at least in theaters, his works are more than enough to kill a lot of mainstream Hollywood movies. It's just that beyond that, I always expect him to express more and more powerful things.
But after watching "Dunkirk", I have a slightly different view.
Compared to traditional war-themed films, Dunkirk is a complete reversal . First of all, Dunkirk was a massive retreat , a huge rout of World War II. From the moment the beach appeared on the camera, anyone who knew this history would know that in these 107 minutes, there would be no us Victory and heroes are usually expected .
Secondly , across the English Channel, on the beach of Dunkirk across the sea from the United Kingdom, there are 400,000 British and French allied troops waiting to retreat, but as the narrative progresses, except on the breakwater and the destroyer full of British soldiers, we In addition to being able to see the dense crowd, most of the time, only one or a few people appear in the camera, and the whole scene that a person's sight can reach. In other words, the camera has told us that this is not a description . A movie of great war, but about individuals in war, and war in the eyes of individuals .
Again, compared to the hustle and bustle of war we are familiar with, what Dunkirk strives to show is silence. With only more than 100 pages of script and few lines, Tommy and Gibson, who met by chance on the beach, experienced several moments of life and death, but hardly had any dialogue; the first soldier rescued at sea by the civilian ship Moon Stone, a long time No one said a word inside. Silence and waiting filled most of the time. However, Nolan convinced me that this is the true face of Dunkirk. These young people who survived the bloody frontline are more inclined to this kind of silence and loneliness than to shout slogans and express their heartfelt words. , fear and a desire to return home.
At the beginning of the movie, the empty beach unfolds before our eyes, which has an inexplicable beauty. Nolan used large-format film and IMAX cameras to create this dangerous beauty. Outside of war, the sky and the ocean are lovely landscapes, but at the moment they are just as desolate and lonely. It also represents the hope of returning home and Possibility of dying at any time .
The British and French allied forces were forced back to Dunkirk by the German army. The infantry faced the sea and had nowhere to retreat. Although the French army contained most of the German attacks on the front line, they still hovered above their heads. German bombers . That is to say, whether it is the soldiers waiting in line on the beach, or the soldiers who were fortunate enough to board the destroyer first, or the pilots performing tasks in the air, and the unarmed civilian ships sailing from the other side, they were all exposed to the German army. in sight.
In fact, in the movie, the Germans did not appear frontally. They were "invisible" and integrated into the vastness of the sky and sea, thus becoming a ubiquitous threat. Their perspective was God's perspective, while the Allied forces' The viewing angle is local and limited.
Aside from being lost, silent, and individual, the Dunkirk war was closed . There are three narrative lines of sea, land and air, and most of the plot unfolds in confined spaces: the cabin and the engine room . Enclosed spaces increase tension, and at the same time cause greater oppression to the people in them, and it is easier for them to reveal their truest side, and under such pressure and fear, their faces are often the same as heroes. The image is the opposite: selfish, greedy and even dark, which is also the kind of truth Nolan wants to show. Human nature is not all bright, everyone knows this, but when it is displayed in front of your eyes in such a way, the feelings it brings are actually very complicated. These dark sides are the evils that we usually hate and avoid. But at the moment it is an evil we cannot blame. Because it is not unprovoked, spontaneous, but brought about by the evil of war.
On the other hand, in such a harsh environment, the image of the French soldier Gibson and the civilian captain Gibson represented the bright side is more moving. But they are not traditional high-level images, and they also have their own weaknesses and inhumane history. A few strokes in the film give them flesh and blood, warmth and a three-dimensional sense to balance the dark side of the war created before.
Finally, when it comes to the soundtrack, Hans Zimmer, who has always had a lot of fans, has been protested by many audiences this time, saying that the soundtrack is too full, too annoying, overwhelming and so on. The soundtrack does barely stop from beginning to end, marching in a low voice all the time with very little melody change, almost all analog clock ticks and breath/wind, and honestly it made me very anxious at first , but later in the trawler section, in the small cabin, the soldiers didn't say a word, and when the BGM sounded again, I understood that the "fullness" of the soundtrack was actually due to its functionality. It replaces the missing lines and inner monologues, supporting the emotional tension, anxiety and discomfort felt by the audience, which is actually one of the goals it aims to achieve. After all , to make a good movie, the elements in it cannot be pleasant all the time, and it can even be said that many times it is not so pleasant, but it must be able to stimulate the audience's senses and thinking initiative .
In addition, the sound effects can also be said to be realistic and scary. I was immersed in the vastness of the sea, land and air scenery, when a bullet suddenly came. The sharpness and approaching sense made my heart beat faster by several beats. For a few seconds, I thought I was really in it. Circling around for a while.
"Dunkirk" is undoubtedly ambitious. In addition to refreshing the audience's cognition with an anti-traditional and anti-routine war movie, it also tries to evoke people's historical memory. Speaking of Dunkirk, people in the UK may have a deep memory, but the history including it is being forgotten by more people, just like the destroyers that Nolan was looking for all over the world when he was filming. The events that existed, the basis of our lives today, are fading from our vision and memory.
But without history, there is no future. This is the most important perception and feeling that Dunkirk brings to us.
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