One week, one day, one hour

Josiane 2021-12-07 08:01:06

In the new movie "Dunkirk" for one hour, Nolan clearly indicated to everyone in the form of subtitles at the beginning of the film that I was about to start my favorite multi-time and multi-space interlaced fancy nonlinear interpretation. The first line is the soldiers waiting to retreat in Dunkirk port, the second line is the British old man who was rescued in Dunkirk with his yacht and two children on the response ship, and the third line is to block German air raids. British Air Force. Compared with the previous narration of Nolan’s films with multiple spaces and interlaced times, this time the same technique did not leave the slightest suspense. Therefore, I don’t agree with the idea of ​​making the war film "Inception". Maybe the narrative style is very Nolan, but the effect is completely different. This time the interspersed layers bring more clarity. The superposition of the three story lines also makes this blockbuster, which is only more than an hour thick, full of thickness. The idea for "Dunkirk" came from Nolan, his wife and friends who drove a cruise ship across the strait to Dunkirk. During this trip, he read a book about "Operation Generator". For us, when we mention Dunkirk, even if we don't know what it is, we know that it will definitely carry the words "great retreat", let alone an Englishman. I think the experience of crossing the strait and the books I read while crossing the sea influenced Nolan to choose the perspective of "Operation Generator". That is to say, putting aside the most eye-catching gimmick of the Dunkirk retreat, why Hitler ordered a ceasefire, abandoning a powerful psychedelic that can create a more confusing atmosphere: what the politicians of Britain, France and Germany did behind this rare historical event Political game. What Nolan did is not to retell the story that everyone knows in his own way, but to let the audience walk through this historical event and experience for themselves what happened at that time. For this kind of unshakable World War II case that made historians noisy, it took so many years to see all the chess pieces before digging deep into who did what, and the director didn’t want to take the audience to swim in this muddy water. One pass, more is to give us a sense of urgency and despair and expectation of being surrounded by the German army and having no way to retreat, and going home alive. At the beginning of the movie, a few British soldiers found leaflets scattered by the Germans on a dilapidated street. The leaflets clearly indicate that 400,000 British and French forces have been besieged by the Germans in a small area in northern France. Only the small port of Dunkirk is left. Retreat at sea. Then these soldiers were attacked by the Germans and ran all the way to the pier where troops were being withdrawn urgently. As a well-known historical story, this kind of beginning is undoubtedly short, straightforward and surprising. Anyone telling Dunkirk’s story begins with “Not long after World War II, Germany launched a large-scale offensive. It was the result of the incident reported in the newspaper from the perspective of the British brother. There was no incitement or advocacy. There were only 300,000 companions who retreated to the motherland. This is my favorite part of the whole movie. There are no famous historical figures such as Churchill, Hitler, Goering, etc. surrounding this incident. Instead, they completely discarded those who stood behind the curtain of war. The people who command the battle with their eyes focus on the little people who stand at the forefront braving the gunfire. Hiding the enemy in the hearts of the audience, hiding the big figures who shape history in the history, just doing the director's responsibility to tell the story with sound and pictures, it can be said that "Dunkirk" is a movie that has reached my expectations. Finally, I attach the speech of Churchill that appeared in the newspaper at the end of the credits, because I think it is too good... "Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous states have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

The three time circles were rotated at their own pace with the story as the center. The fastest second hand intersects with the minute hand at the earliest, so three fighter jets passed over the yacht, and Captain Dawson knew what was coming by just listening. Then the minute hand and the hour hand also converged. Yacht captain Dawson rescued the Army Cillian Murphy sitting on the sunken ship. The Army said that a torpedo sank the ship. This is why the slowest turn of the circle represented a week after a few scenes. The shaft only said that the torpedo hit the troop-carrying ship. The three pointers are interspersed from time to time at their own speed, and eventually the three pointers overlap and the three story rings stop rotating. The ticking sound of the hands moving throughout the entire soundtrack also perfectly matched this dial-style narration. The second time I saw it, I had to sigh that this precise use of time is more restrained than the restraint shown in the screen. The director is probably in the late stage of obsessive-compulsive disorder. If Nolan can use time perfectly in the previous movies, this time He has truly visualized time. Time is the thing that exists and the surroundings like air but is the least likely to be shaped. Almost every movie of Nolan is true to time, but this time he simply let the whole movie The movie has become a huge dial on the screen. It is estimated that Nolan will make a watch if he doesn’t work as a director... Regarding the music, the film is full of music, whether it’s for people who only watched it once or watched it several times. It’s an aspect that the film has to talk about. Of course some people like it and some people hate it. What I want to talk about here is not the rationality of the soundtrack or how bad the soundtrack is, but a blank space before the end of the film. Tommy got on the train, and the person on the other side wanted to talk to him, but he just fell asleep in his seat. There was no music at all for a few seconds, or it was completely silent. The people in the entire theater should theoretically breathe a sigh of relief. That's right, but in these few seconds of silence, you can't even hear the panting of the surrounding audience. I personally like this pause very much, which reminds me of the white space of painting or the exquisite display of French food. For a film soundtrack that is full of music every frame, a gap should be abruptly left out if it is not done well. Fortunately, the time is calculated very accurately at this point. The three time points are converged, and the dial Stopped, the ticking stopped, the big movement called the curtain call, there was no longer a tense sense of time pressure, and the nightmare was over when I woke up. So I don’t think that the music of this film is overflowing. It is not easy to give the audience enough audition shocks in the intense plot but stop immediately where they should stop without hesitation.

(This article has been adapted into a radio program, welcome to listen to the "Bingtang Movie" of NetEase Cloud Music.)

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Extended Reading
  • Dwight 2022-03-24 09:01:10

    The three clues, land, sea, and sky, have their own time spans, one week, one day, and one hour, like three springs that are pulled to different lengths, then retract at different speeds and meet at one point. The three clues are cross-propelled. Because of the different time spans, different detailed treatments are required. This also makes the clues have the effect of inversion, repetition, prediction, and complementarity between time and space and the state of the characters. retreat"

  • Kirstin 2022-04-24 07:01:02

    It used to be long and long, now it is short and short. I remember there was a section in TDKR, coming out of that "big well", using Minimalism to compress months of time, and the time gaps were well filled by the soundtrack... and the soundtrack in Dunkirk further connected It has become an organic part of the film through multiple time and space, which is like a deformation of sound effects, like the various sounds that will be produced when a door is closed.

Dunkirk quotes

  • Shivering Soldier: You haven't turned around.

    Mr. Dawson: No, we have a job to do.

    Shivering Soldier: Job? This is a pleasure yacht. You're weekend sailors, not the bloody navy. A man your age?

    Mr. Dawson: Men my age dictate this war. Why should we be allowed to send our children to fight it?

    Shivering Soldier: You should be at home!

    Mr. Dawson: Well, there won't be any home if we allow a slaughter across the Channel.

  • [Bolton and Winnant are having a heated discussion about the evacuation]

    Captain Winnant: They need to send more ships. Every hour, the enemy pushes closer.

    Commander Bolton: They've activated the small vessels pool.

    Captain Winnant: Small vessels?

    Commander Bolton: It's a list of civilian boats for requisition.

    Captain Winnant: Civilian? We need destroyers...!

    Commander Bolton: Small boats can load from the beach.

    Captain Winnant: Not in these conditions!

    Commander Bolton: Well, I'd rather fight waves than dive-bombers.

    Captain Winnant: [Beat] No, you're right. They won't get up in this. The Royal Engineers are building piers from lorries. At least that should help us when the tide comes back.

    Commander Bolton: Well, we'll know in six hour's time.

    Captain Winnant: I thought the tides were every three?

    Commander Bolton: Then it's good that you're army and I'm navy, isn't it.