Dunkirk

Dunkirk is four stories that are loosely tied together, all providing a glimpse of the evacuation that allowed the British to save its army and ignominious defeat.

First, there is Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), a young soldier who is wandering the streets of Dunkirk with a handful of other soldiers when they are suddenly fired upon.  He is the only one who escapes and finds himself with thousands of soldiers milling on the beach, waiting for evacuation.  But Tommy is not prepared to wait his turn.  He has the misfortune of being aboard two separate ships that sink.  Tommy is not a laudable character but we get to see a lot of him.

Second, there is the officers in charge of the evacuation, namely Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branaugh) and Colonel Winnant (James D'Arcy).  Mostly, they stand on the end of the pier and explain the dire situation, serving as de facto narrators.  Though important for the narrative, they are static characters of little interest.

Third, there are the Spitfire pilots, Farrier (Tom Hardy) and Collins (Jack Lowden).  This storyline is the most exciting, providing the majority of the action as the two pilots must keep track of their fuel consumption, watch out for enemy fighters, and protect ships from German bombers.  Hardy shines as an unflappable fighter pilot.

Finally, there is the Moonstone, a private boat piloted by Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance) and crewed by his son Peter and young George Miller.  This is the best story of the bunch, showing a civilian craft taking part in the rescue of the British military.  During the trip to Dunkirk, they pickup a soldier (Cillian Murphy) from a sunken ship, rescue Collins from his ditched Spitfire, and fish a couple dozen more soldiers from a sunken destroyer.  Also, they recover Tommy.  Like Hardy's fighter pilot, Rylance is insouciant in the face of danger, a stark contrast to some of the soldiers he rescued.

 

The movie tries to strike a balance between the big picture and the individual characters.  In so doing, it felt like it missed both.  There are too many characters and this is the story of too many people.  The holding action that protected the beach for the evacuation is entirely absent.  It is a war movie with surprisingly little fighting.  All too often, the characters are just sitting ducks for German dive bombers or unseen snipers.

 

Not a bad film but clearly Nolan's weakest film.  Hardy and Rylance were great but I could have done without the rest of it.  This is material for a documentary, not an entertaining movie.  It is tough to adapt a catastrophic retreat to the big screen and Nolan did about as well as can be expected.  I am reminded of Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

Brave Sir Robin ran away.
Bravely ran away away.
When danger reared it's ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Swiftly taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin!

 

It is hard to make a heroic film out of Dunkirk, especially when as much attention is paid to those fleeing as those rescuing.

The Revenant

It is 1823 when a band of trappers are attacked by Arikara warriors.  The survivors board a keelboat and escape.  Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is out scouting when he is attacked by a bear.  The party drag him along until they come to an impassible barrier to carry his stretcher.  While the rest of the party move on, three men stay behind: Hawk, Glass's half-breed son, Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), and Jim Bridger.  While left alone with Glass, Fitzgerald attempts to finish him off but Hawk arrives.  The trailer makes clear that Glass's son is killed by Fitzgerald so it is hardly a spoiler to mention that here.  Of course, Glass survives and sets out for revenge.

The true part is that Arikara warriors attacked a band of trappers led by William Henry Ashley, killing about 15 of them.  The survivors fled, during which time Glass was mauled by the bear.  With Glass unable to travel, Ashley called for volunteers to stay with him until he recovered or, more likely, died.  Fitzpatrick and Bridger volunteered but then left the still-living Glass behind, taking his rifle.  Glass survived and spent 6 weeks crawling back to Fort Kiowa.  In the wake of the Arikara attack, Lt. Colonel Henry Leavenworth led an expedition against them; this is the Arikara War (1823) and the first military engagement between the US and western Indians.  After Glass recovered, he set out to find Bridger and Fitzpatrick.  He killed neither of them but did recover his stolen rifle.

The movie has some historical inaccuracies that bothered me.  At one point, Fitzgerald mentions how his father had been with some Texas Rangers on some trek.  Of course, the Texas Rangers were only just established in 1823 while the trapping expedition set out in 1822.  The attack by the Arikara was in May of 1823.  Glass was mauled in August.  His trip back to Fort Kiowa took 6 weeks. In contrast, the movie seems to take place in the dead of winter.  A couple of times, Glass has a vision of piles of buffalo bones; the genocidal slaughter of the buffalo didn't occur until after the Civil War.  Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) was almost 50 during this expedition (Gleeson is 32) and didn't die until 1832.

 

The movie has a good amount of suspense but is often very slow paced.  There are a lot of nature shots, staring up through trees, showing snowy mountains, epic waterfalls, and so forth.  I was reminded of the closing clips that Charles Osgood would show on CBS News Sunday Morning; perhaps he still does.  In any case, that really slowed the pace of the film, entirely unnecessary for a 2 and a half hour long movie.  There was a repeated flashback to a Pawnee village slaughtered by US soldiers.  Having created a fictional son for Glass, the film makers decided to have a fictional Pawnee massacre to explain what happened to his Pawnee wife.  There are enough real massacres that a fictional one need not be used.  Though the French had traveled far and wide in the region during the 18th Century, the loss of Canada to the British and the Louisiana Purchase cut down on their fur trapping along the Missouri River.  This group of Frenchmen are shown as murders, arms dealers, and rapists; is there a political message meant by that?

 

The acting is quite good.  Tom Hardy was particularly good as the baddie; in fact, there are times where it is easy to sympathize with him.  Though I liked DiCaprio, the script had too much mystical mumbo-jumbo, too many visions, too many voices in his head to accept.  Inarritu hammered the attachment to son and wife with such frequency that I grew tired of it.  Cut all of that and the desire for revenge is still clear as day; as with the nature shots, it was excessive.

 

Overall, a good and entertaining film.  Cinematography makes it worth seeing in the theater.