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 Dunkirk 

Rate This Film
A 50%  50%  [ 9 ]
B 28%  28%  [ 5 ]
C 6%  6%  [ 1 ]
D 6%  6%  [ 1 ]
F 11%  11%  [ 2 ]
Total votes : 18

 Dunkirk 
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Post Re: Dunkirk
Magic Mike wrote:
Performances are strong, though absolutely nobody stands out


Mark Rylance stands out. Or did you watch the a cut where The Sea thread was deleted?

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Wed Aug 02, 2017 3:47 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
He gives the best performance I suppose but I really didn't think anyone was great.


Wed Aug 02, 2017 4:14 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
Magic Mike wrote:
The lack of story is kind of surprising.

I find it peculiar to read this, because especially because of the 3 angles (land, sea and air) the film covers a lot of story actually I think. Even while the film is told through visuals and sound, I think they pack so much punch that I don't relate to lack of story comments.

Magic Mike wrote:
I understand that the film is more about the experience and putting you in this situation, and that's fine, but it makes it hard to truly care about what happens to anyone.

There indeed doesn't seem to be a lot of dialogue so I guess I can see how for some people that offers a lack of engagement. But as you mention the experience, this offered all the tension it needed for me to feel involved.


Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:53 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
Anybody that sees the "lack of a story" as a negative is simply not a mature film watcher. They're narrow-minded in the expectation that every film must fit into a little box of beginning, middle, and an end, have a clear narrative, etc. etc.

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Wed Aug 02, 2017 7:05 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
Algren wrote:
Anybody that sees the "lack of a story" as a negative is simply not a mature film watcher. They're narrow-minded in the expectation that every film must fit into a little box of beginning, middle, and an end, have a clear narrative, etc. etc.

Anybody that judges film watchers' maturity based on their taste in narrative structure is a dogmatist.

Especially when that judgment is based on a review of a single film. I daresay that those who found the particular nonlinear narrative structure of Dunkirk to be a failure, may well have found the structure of other nonlinear narrative films to be successful.


Wed Aug 02, 2017 8:42 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
Algren really can't stand it when people don't like a film he likes.


Wed Aug 02, 2017 9:57 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
zwackerm wrote:
Algren really can't stand it when people don't like a film he likes.


Look at my Top 100. I have about 25 years experience in knowing people dislike the films I like. I really don't care what others think. But that doesn't mean I can't comment when I notice something about another person's experience.

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Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:25 pm
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Post Re: Dunkirk
Algren wrote:
Anybody that sees the "lack of a story" as a negative is simply not a mature film watcher. They're narrow-minded in the expectation that every film must fit into a little box of beginning, middle, and an end, have a clear narrative, etc. etc.



I don't buy this nonsense at all. What if I made a movie that consisted of my alarm clock ringing, me pressing the snooze button and sleeping in for 20 minutes, getting up, sitting in the tub for 20 minutes, taking a shower, getting dressed, getting in my car, and driving to work? The final shot is a wide shot of me on the on-ramp, progressing onto the freeway, then fade out and roll credits. If my movie were lambasted as "boring", how much of a response would it be for me to say "You just have a narrow-minded idea of what a movie 'should' be. Movies should also reflect real life and sometimes real life is completely boring."

Filmmaking is a craft. Like any craft, there are foundational elements that generally need to be there in order to make the piece "work." When it comes to movies, one of the most essential or perhaps even the essential element of it is a narrative arc. This movie has only the skeleton of one, if even that. The most charitable way I can think of to describe it is as an experimental film. If the experiment worked for you, great. But get off your high horse deriding those of us who are used to expecting things like "plot" and "character development" in a movie.


Wed Aug 02, 2017 7:58 pm
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Post Re: Dunkirk
I did not claim that a movie should be boring. I simply said that the lack of a clear narrative, film codes and conventions etc. does not make a film boring, and Dunkirk is a perfect example, yet people call it boring because there is "no story" (even though there is a story, it's just told with experiences instead of hand-holding voice-overs or characters explaining everything), and these people are clearly inexperienced film fans that expect every film to adhere to their narrow-minded construct of what a film should be. Dunkirk is a riveting movie experience, and I am not sorry to tell you that anyone who thinks it is boring is a novice. People can dislike it, but disliking it for the right reasons, not some moronic sheep mass knee-jerk reaction to be contrarian.

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Wed Aug 02, 2017 8:43 pm
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Post Re: Dunkirk
Algren wrote:
People can dislike it, but disliking it for the right reasons, not some moronic sheep mass knee-jerk reaction to be contrarian.


Oh yeah, that's it. I was actually secretly riveted during Dunkirk but I thought I could draw some attention to myself if I pretended to hate it.

I'm curious, what are the "right reasons" to dislike Dunkirk that one can espouse while still being considered a Sophisticated Film Fan?


Wed Aug 02, 2017 10:38 pm
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Post Re: Dunkirk
I'll know when I hear them but at the moment all I hear is the same crappy reason. And I generally do not seek out reviews other than on KJ, so you're on your own with this one.

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Thu Aug 03, 2017 12:26 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
WOKJ Grade Averages:

3.6886 - The Dark Knight
3.6320 - Batman Begins
3.5873 - The Prestige
3.4000 - Following
3.3714 - Memento
3.3016 - Inception
3.2281 - The Dark Knight Rises
3.0769 - Interstellar
3.0000 - Insomnia
2.9231 - Dunkirk


Sat Aug 05, 2017 3:18 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
Gamaur wrote:
At least Ludovician explained his point of view effectively enough to make it a matter of personal taste. Tree and a half might also have a decent evaluation in him, but it's his (or her) delivery through crapping on everyone with a different perspective to his own that makes him seem attention-seeking, the extremeness of which comes across as trollish and contrarian.

That's a curious criticism given your own review:

Gamaur wrote:
Fuck the fools and critical lackeys claiming it's lacking in character-depth; for a component to be lacking that component needs to have been necessary, and from the opening frame it's pretty fucking obvious the movie is all about a realistic immersion, an experience, which in spite of some people's spoon-fed expectations, drama actually detracts from.


Wed Aug 09, 2017 3:13 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
Why must we argue? I understand if there is a debate, but you clearly dislike the film. Others like it. There is never going to be common ground. It will escalate to insults because that was the intention to begin with.

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Wed Aug 09, 2017 4:59 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
Finally saw it. While I did enjoy it, there is clearly a bigger masterpiece here that needed 45 minutes more of a time and $75m worth of budget. The scale with regards to the # of soldiers and boats feels tiny. We see maybe a dozen civilian boats and then are told "all 300,000 evacuated".

The lack of nazi's or build up clearly hurts the movie. There's no sense of urgency whatsoever despite Nolan's stated goal of it being a "survival thriller". The lack of storytelling beyond the beach undermines everything.

They badly needed a scene explaining how fucked England is if these soldiers cannot get home, hence the need for instant rescue on England side & the need to survive at all costs on the Dunkirk side of things. That we know the outcome of the war greatly reduces the amount of tension here considering nothing is shown.

They badly needed scenes showing the enemy closing in. It needs to mean something when the army commander says "They've already breached the perimeter". The characters act with this sense of impending doom but we're not shown anything and its not effective at all.

They badly needed a scene explaining why Styles felt like such a failure. The proud British and French armies were getting pulverized by Hitler's nazis. It means nothing at the end when they're greeted as hero's.

The movie leaves far, far too much off screen and it suffers. The only compelling moments are Dawson's determination to help and the pilot passing on a safe landing in order to fight of the last plane.

Solid movie but feels like Nolan was barely trying here when compared to TDK films, Inception, or even Lessthanstellar. Clearly missed potential.

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Sun Aug 20, 2017 11:25 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
Harry Styles was also way better than the lead character. The face he makes when he gets pissy in the boat had me thinking future Joker.

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Sun Aug 20, 2017 11:34 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
I watched Dunkirk again last night, I had come down with a bit of a cold and tiredness, but the story
with it's pulsating score was still a marvel to watch. Without the element of surprise it didn't reach the same level of suspense as when I first watched it, but on a technical level it was fantastic to watch again.

One thing I wondered this time is how Cillian Murphy ended up there in the sea in the beginning. He picked up the Harry Styles bunch when the ship they were one was torpedoed. Time wise it would make it possible for him to get on another boat to England only to be attacked and then rescued, but how he was the only one on that wreckage there at the time, I'd like to have seen more to form a better connection.


Sun Sep 03, 2017 2:49 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
What a huge difference a second viewing made for me. Upon my first viewing, I was left disappointed and a bit confused. I didn't want to judge the film until the second viewing and that was the right call. The second viewing cleared up my confusion as well as erased my disappointment.

The obvious parameters were of course amazing, like the cinematography, sound design, special and visual effects. The acting was good overall, although some of the cast turned me off with their acting.

Simultaneously the film's best and worst element was the unique 3 parallel timelines going at different time frames in the film. If you don't understand the 3 timelines (like I did not after my first viewing) then it really brings the entire film down. However if you do understand the 3 timelines (as I did after my 2nd viewing) then all of a sudden you see the film in a different light.

Regardless of one's opinion on the 3 timelines, it is a genius bit of film craft. Nolan, ever crafty and clever. I thought this was finally the film where Nolan had run out of creativity, but Nolan yet again proved me wrong.

The 3 timelines are fundamental to the whole film, and how the film works as a survival film. Now understanding the 3 timelines, I fully get Nolan's vision and perspective for the film. It truly is a survival film...that simply happens to take place in a wartime setting. Certain elements in the film seem to not make complete chronological sense, and I am convinced this is on purpose. As I understand it, the 3 timelines need to be viewed from a geographic/environment point of view. This may sound really obvious, but hear me out. The timeline of the "mole" takes place over a week, and they are mostly on land and on that pier. So imagine being a solder on the beach there; time can certainly seem to go slowly if you're still waiting and hoping for evacuation, while also hoping not to get attacked by Germans. Now at sea, the timeline was over a day, and that makes sense. Imagining being a soldier or civilian at sea, time would certainly feel faster. Finally in the air, imagining being a pilot up there, time would certainly feel like it's flying by you.

So why do some scenes in the film not make chronological sense? It's because the film is told from the point of view of various soldiers and civilians. Survival does not make perfect sense. In a survival situation, especially a wartime setting, things are chaotic, all over the place, and one has a singular focus, to survive. So from the point of view of being on the beach, things in the water or air may not make sense. Likewise, from the point of view of being at sea or in the air, things on the beach or at sea or in the air won't make much sense either.

So in other words, Nolan's use of the 3 timelines illustrates and exemplifies the pure chaos and confusion of survival (in a war setting). Once you as a viewer truly commit and imagine yourself being on the beach, or at sea, or in the air, then of course certain things won't make sense. This is also why seeing it in IMAX was a big deal that Nolan pushed. IMAX allows to immerse yourself and imagine yourself being in these various environments in the film.

For me the true genius of the 3 timelines was that once I understood the timelines, it was very easy for me to imagine the chaos and confusion of being there on land, sea, or in the air.

Now I still have some issues here and there with the film, but the key thing is those issues have become very minor to me, because truly the meaning of the film was to illustrate and tell a story of what survival feels like, and the chaos and confusion associated with it.

That is why this film upon a 2nd viewing has exceeded my expectations, and I've upgraded my tentative score I had in my mind for this (B-) to a solid A-. This is still one of my least favorite Nolan films, however I can tell this film grows on you the more times you watch it. Nolan certainly has not lost his touch or his magic.

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Sat Sep 09, 2017 1:16 pm
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Post Re: Dunkirk
So, Dunkirk is now playing at the discount theatre around the corner and I decided to give it another shot.

It definitely plays a lot better when you know going into it how the intersecting lines function, and more importantly, that it's not building up to Something, but is rather a stream of little-s somethings. With that knowledge, I was able to appreciate the sequences in their own right rather than waiting, waiting, waiting for the "plot" of the movie to begin. One of the most visually striking things about the film was the way the flooding sequences were shot with the camera affixed to the rolling structure itself, so that it looked like the water line itself was moving.

I know you guys will just pile on me for being unsophisticated and not viewing the film this way in the first place, but I've noticed that a lot of the IMDb reviews of this film -- in fact, probably most of them -- read essentially like my original review here. This combined with the pretty-weak legs the movie at the box office lead me to think that somehow the marketing and/or the film itself should have done a better job of signalling just what exactly the film is.

One complaint I will stick to is that the inability to understand the dialogue is extremely annoying. Can we please stop pretending there's something avant-garde about not being able to even understand what is being said in a movie? I know the defense of this is that it's part of the immersive approach of the movie, but that doesn't hold water, since clearly the characters in the movie itself understand one another. Since we're essentially supposed to be immersed in the situation along with them, why can't we understand alongside them?

Anyway, I revise my original rating from an F to a B.


Fri Oct 13, 2017 2:34 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
It takes a big man to admit when he's wrong/change his mind/correct past mistakes. Good job.

As for you not being able to understand what was being said, maybe it's because they are speaking English. You're American, right? ;)

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Fri Oct 13, 2017 2:49 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
I've never had a problem understanding dialogue in Nolan's films.

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Fri Oct 13, 2017 8:56 pm
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Post Re: Dunkirk
BANE IN A PLANE needs a solo film

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Sat Dec 16, 2017 11:16 pm
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Post Re: Dunkirk
DUNKIRK

I saw this opening day and was shocked. I was shocked because of how disappointed I felt after watching it. I couldn't believe how Nolan was able to turn one of the most famous military retreats in history and reduce it's scope to one section of beach with a few hundred soldiers and a couple boats and a couple planes. It was crazy. Was there some tension at times? Yes. Good acting? Maybe but nothing memorable stood out. I did enjoy the dogfights and maybe the score slightly on some level but this was such a letdown. I still can't believe it.

Grade - C

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Wed Dec 20, 2017 9:23 am
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Post Re: Dunkirk
That's what is remarkable about it. Any other director would have caved at the pressure and just made a bog standard war film with generals pushing pieces around on a horizontal map. Nolan makes it grounded by fixating on a few individual stories. But I wouldn't say he reduced the scope. He just focuses the storytelling. Dunkirk is not a film to educate people. It's a visceral, visual, and aural experience.


Wed Dec 20, 2017 10:22 pm
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Post Re: Dunkirk
Seeing how well this held up on my tv (55” 1080p) might have been even more impressive than seeing it in theaters. Very glad that I bought it instead of just rented.


Thu Jan 18, 2018 2:51 am
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