Posted on 07/24/2017 9:48:24 PM PDT by yetidog
Disappointing if you believed all the glowing reviews.
You wrote:
But perhaps the biggest failing of the film was the lack of grand spectacle.
What this tells me is that audiences have gotten used to an exaggerated level of Computer Generated Graphics sometimes beyond reality and sometimes accurately.
Not all films (as films) must always show details or large masses of soldiers lining up on the Dunkirk beach. Part of what Nolan has done, is an attempt for you, the audience to use your own assumptions and senses to get a feeling for the imagery and events.
In other words, the film was very much like a book, remember books friends? Rem,ember when you used your imagination to perceive things in your mind, adding or subtracting from what is presented to you?
IMHO, this is what Nolan has done. Permitting your imagination to extrapolate on what was shown and what is wrong with that? Or, have we lost all sense of artistic brevity and license?
We are used to American style films with lots of explosions, massive destruction and violence where whole cities are laid waste by robots, martians, Godzilla, Tornadoes, Earthquakes, sharks, Tidal waves, Extreme cold, extreme fog, massive robots, nasty villeins fighting superheroes. So along comes a film, attempting to tell a story from a very unique perspective, land, sea and air simultaneously while emphasizing the human struggle to survive.
What is wrong with that? Do we need to see (as in Hacksaw Ridge) Americans firing their weapons, killing hundreds of Japanese without ever reloading a clip? Is gore a good replacement for a sound story, as in Band of Brothers?
Bingo. The criticisms here are both accurate and bullcrap. The movie is gripping. Didn’t just follow cowards the airmen and boatmen were great heroes. It was an anti war film at heart but many great war films are. Didn’t identify the Germans which was either arty or pc.
Obviously, the Coen Brothers are Jewish. But the the Soundtrack for the film was a slow-moving, beautifully haunting version of “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” The album has given me hours of pleasure.
Bingo 2. The film is a work of art but also shows a lot of nuts and bolts. I’d say the depiction of the imprecision of WWII air to air combat was exactly intended to contrast with modern computer driven weoponry, and the director succeeded in magnificent fashion.
I was wrong about Jeff Bridges being a conservative. He voted for Hillary, yet a Missouri paper recently wrote:
But when it comes to critiquing the role of today’s real-life president, Bridges is a lot more laid back than some of his fellow celebrities. How would The Dude, the character he played in “The Big Lebowski,” handle things?
He likely wouldn’t be dangling a severed head in the likeness of President Donald Trump, as comedian Kathy Griffin came under fire for. Neither would The Dude joke about killing the president as Johnny Depp recently did. Griffin and Depp later apologized.
Well, you’ve convinced me! ... to see it, that is.
I was mesmerized by the preview clips I saw, so I can’t give you all the credit :-)
Still think the best depiction of the Dunkirk evacuation was depicted in a ten minute scene from Noel coward and Davis Lean’s ‘In Which we Serve’.
Think I’ll pass on this latest rendition. Even if I’m a huge fan of Kenneth Branagh since the days of ‘Henry V’.
Here! Here!
It reminds one of the 1969 hit, “Battle of Britain”.
I thoroughly enjoyed the “Dunkirk” film, appreciating how it was done, the music, the tension and the acting. What ever happened to simplicity designed to get a message across?
The movie was made on a very high budget and, technically, comes off very well.
But it lacks heart and sympathetic characters. It’s sterile.
and, yes, the naxis are only referred to as “the enemy” and any and all references to prayer or God are stricken. Even from the opening card which states they looked for hope and... a miracle (not prayed for a miracle). No soldier is ever seen praying - even over the dead.
What you’re supposed to leave with is that people sacrificed themselves for others (the civilians, the pilots, the individual soldiers). But theres no exploration of the motivation as such other than “people should be good to each other as a higher calling” Higher calling to what? Higher calling to whom? That’s why they couldn’t point out the naxis because they were following their “higher calling”. Without God - it’s a meaningless platitude towards humanism and relativistic morality.
It’s not a BAD movie overall - it’s just more spectcale than an honest look at war.
Well done!
Hacksaw Ridge, brutal, gripping, and surprisingly uplifting in the end. As good if not better than Band of Brothers.
Hacksaw Ridge, brutal, gripping, and surprisingly uplifting in the end. As good if not better than Band of Brothers.
Agree!
It was okay at best. It’s a movie you only see once.
Sounds to me like the movie “Mrs Miniver” would have been more interesting.
I’m sorry, I must fundamentally disagree with both your assessments of this film. I saw it at a military post overseas (I’m a retired Army officer and civilian employee of DoD). The audience was stunned by the film and applauded loudly at the end.
No film in recent memory has more effectively captured the experience of the individual soldiers, sailors, and airmen who had been outmaneuvered by their enemy, and had their backs to the sea. The film effectively show how these men maintained their discipline (lined up waiting for boats they did not know would show, they scattered, then reassembled back into line after each air attack). I’ve taken incoming indirect fire, I easily related to these men.
Some of the comments above indicate that the posters expected a more traditional film, as yetidog puts it “grand spectacle.” I submit that including such things would have fundamentally undermined the film. There is little grand in war, it is an ugly, nasty, violent business, as Clausewitz (who personally saw a lot of battle) puts it, “a serious means to a serious end.” It is unfortunately necessary, as evil exists and war is sometimes least bad option to end that evil.
Dunkirk as a film is simply a masterpiece. Mr. Nolan minimized the dialog, by going small and focusing on individual experiences, he captures the violence and terror of combat and shares that experience with a modern audience.
Concurrently he celebrates the grit and determination of the common soldiers, sailors, airmen, and civilians who got on with the job and made ultimate victory possible.
Just the $0.02 of someone who has seen his share of war.
“Remember when you used your imagination to perceive things in your mind, adding or subtracting from what is presented to you?”
Sounds like I will enjoy it - but won’t be bringing my wife along. Probably a dumb comparison, but I really enjoyed that spooky movie “The Blair Witch Project” from years ago. I went alone. The kids behind me were laughing and loudly saying how stupid it was after the lights went up. I looked at them and said “You haven’t spent many nights out alone in the woods - have you?”
Obviously they were looking for some scary creatures, and not just some sticks hanging from branches.
I am aware that the movie is historical in the sense that it gave the British hope when it was made and was considered indispensable in rallying the British people and boosting their morale. So good for that. It is way too cloying for me now, but perhaps I should watch it again and give it another chance.
As for Dunkirk, I have not seen it yet, but wins kudos from the audience. The over 25 crowd gives it an A- and the under 25 crowed gives it an A, which means it will do very well in the next several months. Someone mentioned it looked cheap, but it cost $150 million not including marketing. The movie was not supposed to have a narrative and some have compared it to a silent movie. It is supposed to capture what it was like to be there from three different perspectives and that is about it. The first from the ground, then the air and then the sea. Each one covers the same time frame, so that is why people are confused as to what is happening time wise. The ground is covered first, then you go back in time and cover the same time frame from the air and then the sea. If you don't know that going in, I have read it can be very confusing.
So I won't prejudge, but it was directed by Christopher Nolan, who is one of the top directors and any of his movies always gets a lot of publicity and his movies are always a bit different. The whole country of France is upset by the movie since it never mentions France, its soldiers or its effort at Dunkirk...70,000 of the 400,000 stranded at Dunkirk were French soldiers.
People take movies way too seriously. One single movie can't really cover all perspectives or everything a vast population wants. It just isn't going to happen. I never believe one movie is so inclusive that it tells me everything I need to know about the subject.
I think you win the post of the year award. I loved it. It seems you have FreeRepublic figured out to a “T”.
You could convey that experience with any war movie -- and many have. The significance of Dunkirk was that, in the midst of a total military disaster, a miracle occurred, recognized as such even as it was happening by those involved.
I enjoyed the movie, but was left without a clear feeling of the scale of the epic. Over 300,000 men evacuated over a period of more than a week. Thousands of small boats ferrying men across the Channel. The scene where the flotilla of small boats arriving is first revealed was tiny and insignificant compared to the reality of Dunkirk.
Still, compared to most of what Hollywood does nowadays, it was a winner.
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