Not only am I a bit of a film buff, but I’m also a history nerd at the same time. If you read posts this time last year of mine you will have known that I was going to study history at university. I kind of changed my mind and moved my passions to film, but there is still a little bit of love for history, so whenever there is a film based on WWII then it is my mission to go and see it! Also, the film buff in me knew that it was written and directed by Christopher Nolan so I already knew that it was faint to be amazing! Also, part of the film was actually filmed here in Dorset, so I wanted to see if I could recognise some of the locations (which I did!)
One of the things that I noticed about this film is that there isn’t much dialogue in it. It is mainly just action sequences which both my Mum and I actually liked. It made it seem more realistic, as the majority of the time they were trying to flee from the action at Dunkirk because of how awful it was. I also noticed and liked how there was no one main character in it. All the characters were equally important and their stories were all just as important and the same message came across from each side, which was that they wanted to get home. I also noticed that for some of the characters we never heard a name for them. I feel like this is also really important to note as it could be there for 2 reasons. Firstly, to represent all of the unnamed soldiers that died and secondly to represent all of the unnamed heroes at Dunkirk, for example, we never here the name of the father who takes his small personal boat over to Dunkirk to rescue the men. I think that this shows that there were regular people who had not been trained that risked their life to go and save the men over in Dunkirk.
The one negative thing for me personally was that the fighting was too loud for me (I saw it in cinema so that could be why, it might be better on DVD/streaming). I get the reasoning why it has to be loud, but it was just uncomfortable. I guess this represents something else important. We have the option to turn it down/turn it off, but they didn’t. When a plane flew over it was loud, when a bomb went off it was loud and it was constant. I only had to cope with it for an hour and a half, but they would have to cope with weeks at a time out in the open with little to no protection from what was happening.
This was Harry Styles’ first movie and I was in the beginning a little bit skeptical about putting someone from One Direction in such a hard hitting film. I was concerned that the audience he would bring would be screaming teenage girls that every time Harry was on screen that someone would scream. I also had concern that he wasn’t going to be a good actor, I mean look at the One Direction music videos. However, I was completely wrong. I thought Harry was well suited to his character and is a good up and coming actor. He really embraced the character and I thought he did really well. I can’t wait to see what work he does next in the hope that it will be equally as good. Now onto his audience that he brought in. To be honest, when I went and saw this film in the Bournemouth Odeon, there was mainly people in their 40s and up. I feel like I was the youngest one there. However, even if Harry does bring in teenagers who are obsessed with his every move then that must be a good thing. Especially for a film like this. It would teach uninterested in history teens about what the war was like. It will teach them to respect the heroes who fought for us. I hope that these teens look deeper into the film than just ‘Look its Harry, aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!’.
I feel like this is a really important film as it showcases what it was like in Dunkirk both for the UK and actually in Dunkirk. It’s good that people will be aware of what happened and how bad it was for people in that time.
Rating: 4.5/5
~Ciara~