美国国家公共电台 NPR In 'Dunkirk,' Christopher Nolan Brings New Life To True World War II Story

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Filmmaker Christopher Nolan introduced himself to audiences by telling a story backwards¹ in "Memento²." He surprised audiences again by bringing seriousness to superhero movies with his "Dark Knight³" trilogy. Our critic Bob Mondello says now Nolan has done a new kind of rethink for a real-life World War II story. It's called "Dunkirk."

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE⁴: The first image on screen is at once bizarre and beautiful - a handful of British soldiers walking a French town's deserted⁵ streets as scraps⁶ of paper flutter down from the sky. They're inscribed⁷ with the unnerving words, we surround you. And as if to prove that, gunfire erupts. When one soldier, a slender kid named Tommy, runs past sandbags to escape, he finds a scene even more bizarre - a beach with tens of thousands of British troops lined up single-file right down to the water, trapped, awaiting rescue from an England so close it seems almost visible in the distance.

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JAMES D'ARCY: (As Colonel Winnant) The enemy tanks have stopped.

KENNETH BRANAGH: (As Commander Bolton) Why?

D'ARCY: (As Colonel Winnant) Why waste precious tanks when they can pick us off from the air like fish in a barrel?

MONDELLO: In "Dunkirk," we're saving not a Private Ryan but more than 300,000 British troops, a rescue operation so enormous most filmmakers would use strategizing generals to help audiences understand it. Writer-director Christopher Nolan wants us to experience it as the soldiers did, so he shoots in IMAX and tells their stories in their own timeframes - a week on the beach, a day at sea, an hour in the air, all unfolding at the same time in a patchwork⁸ that somehow approximates the shattering terror of war - Tommy's frustrating⁹ week-long struggle to get off that beach as bombs explode...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DUNKIRK")

MONDELLO: ...Intercut with a tiny boat's single day at sea as it rushes urgently with thousands of others to the shallow coastal¹⁰ waters where British destroyers can't go...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DUNKIRK")

CILLIAN MURPHY: (As Shivering Soldier) If we go there, we'll die.

MONDELLO: ...And a vertigo-inducing hour in the air with a pair of Royal Air Force pilots in Spitfires.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DUNKIRK")

JACK¹¹ LOWDEN: (As Collins) He's on me.

TOM HARDY¹²: (As Farrier) I'm on him.

MONDELLO: Despite its time-bending structure, "Dunkirk" manages to be crystal clear without many words - masterful visual storytelling on an epic¹³ scale. When people try to talk, they're often drowned out by the rat-a-tat of gunfire or by a Hans Zimmer score hell-bent on amplifying¹⁴ the throb¹⁵ of a ship's pistons¹⁶, the scream of diving bombers¹⁷.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DUNKIRK")

MONDELLO: The chaos¹⁸ of war without swastikas, without ideology¹⁹ and especially without platitudes²⁰ from the folks calling the shots. When Winston Churchill's words are heard, they're read by a soldier from a newspaper because "Dunkirk" is not about leaders. It's about the traumas²¹ and the heroics of the little guys who suffer the consequences of being led. Arguably that makes this gorgeous war movie an epic for our time. I'm Bob Mondello.