Entry posted by Jean Valjean
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I haven't felt this strongly about a film since 2013.
Good cinematographer
Good sound technicians
Good production designer
Everything else sucked. You don't feel for a single character, not to mention that literally everyone on-screen is fictional. I remember when he released this thinking, "Ah, for once Christopher Nolan can make a traditional film in a genre that should be larger than him as a director. If nothing else, we won't have any more of this non-linear storytelling." As it happens, I was wrong. And if anyone can shoehorn non-linear storytelling into a movie where it doesn't belong, it's Christopher Nolan.
Seriously? We're going to do this with a WWII movie? And all in the space of one battle? Really, Nolan? He's beginning to remind me of M. Night Shyamalan, who makes strange directing choices that scream "Hey look! I'm directing!" and "Ask me what it means!" This is basically proof that Christopher Nolan cares more about patting himself on the back for being an auteur than actually making a good movie. He loves himself more than he does film. And he somehow has the gall to market himself as "the last remaining vestige of classical, decent and respectable film making."
No. No, Mr. Nolan. You are not. You are a hack. You are a snob. All you care about it creating this illusion that you're smarter than everyone else, and being hailed as a savior for the modern film making business by delusional fans. You want to be important. In every film, you create a ridiculously conspicuous awareness that you're directing, overshadowing everything else about it. Want to make an historical epic about World War II? Nope. There's no such thing as an actual World War II film in Christopher Nolan's mind, only a Christopher Nolan film that happens to be set in World War II. Then, just like all of your other films, include some things that sound deep, and then do non-linear storytelling to make people think that you're making a much deeper point than you really are, to convince them that "only smart people appreciate them, and I'm sorry that your unsophisticated mind can't comprehend it."
Well, I'm calling the emperor out on having no clothes. He's butt naked. He's a fraud.
And on top of that, while Hans Zimmer has put out a few good scores, his collaborations with Nolan represent everything that I hate about modern movie music, and his Dunkirk score took it to the extreme. 99% of the score for Dunkirk mimics the ticking of a clock, or a heartbeat, or panting, or whatever else goes to a high-strung tempo. It's all one-note, and it's always taught all of the time. It always sounds like it's about to crescendo. And it all sounds the same. Guys, I think I've discovered the ultimate Hans Zimmer soundtrack. It's every negative stereotype associated with Hans Zimmer taken to the utmost extreme. It doesn't even fit the setting, because it sounds so ridiculously modern.
With Dunkirk, there is so much story that you can tell. For example, how Winston Churchill organized it all. That's fascinating. You can tell a huge story about organizing this. No such story. You can tell a very interesting story on the reasons speculated as to why Adolf Hitler halted hit troops' advance. You could tell any other number of stories. You could tell any story, actually.
But Christopher Nolan literally has no story. He just randomly jumps back and forth, in a non-linear fashion, between three different casts of characters that you don't really care about. Some faceless guy on the beach. A family who runs one of the boats. A couple of pilots. You don't try to make us sympathize with any of them, because you're too obsessed with telling a non-linear "story" in order to look smart. None of these characters go through any arc's. And for your film's supposed theme that the soldiers of Dunkirk were heroic, you don't actually try to make anyone feel the same amount of fear that they do. You don't humanize them.
I'm going to go out and say it: I hate this movie just as much as Pearl Harbor. I watched it with a few elderly people, and they liked it, but they're not aware of the context of this film. The release of this film takes place within the context of a world that has Christopher Nolan fever, and a fan base that campaigns for his name to be lauded as the greatest director of all time. People speak of him as though he were infallible. It has gone to his head. Not a single one of his films comes off as sincere to me, other than his earliest movies. I know that a lot of World War II veterans won't be offended by this film. They'll think "Hey, it's about us!" No, this isn't about you. It's all about him. It has always been about him. He's only using you to get more power. He's exploiting the Greatest Generation to gain immortality.
So suffice to say, I don't like Christopher Nolan. He used to merely just not be my style, but now I intensely dislike him.
Go watch Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets instead.
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