Blaine: Whatever Christopher Nolan does I’m always supportive for it because he’s earned my trust by making movies that are so original and hard working. I thought it was interesting that his next film would be about war, especially one that is based on true events because he’s never done a historical film before. I have to say I really got into it and Christopher did a spectacular job making it so suspenseful.
Plot(Spoiler Alert)
Taking place during World War II, Allied soldiers from Britain and France are surrounded by the German Army on the beaches of Dunkirk and are trying to evacuate.
Blaine: Christopher Nolan grew up listening to the events of Dunkirk and one day, he and his wife, Emma, were sailing across the English Channel to Dunkirk with a friend of theirs on his boat. It felt dangerous even though there weren’t any bombs dropping on them. Seeing that war zone made Chris wonder why this hadn’t been made into a film, so he decided to do it himself. What Chris liked about the story was the fact that these men don’t give up until they are as far away and somewhere safe.
Because “Dunkirk” is based on something that actually happened, Chris felt a little bit of pressure trying to make the film as true to what it represents. There was still people alive who had experienced Dunkirk during 1940 and Chris interviewed them to get their story as part of his research.
“Dunkirk” focuses on three stories taking place on land, sea and air, and all three take place on the same day and a half. There’s men trying to get off the land, but the German’s are shooting and dropping bombs at the escape boats through aircraft. Tom Hardy and a couple other Spitfire pilots are in charge of taking down the German planes through their aircraft. And finally a sailor, played by Mark Rylance, and two young boys sail across the sea to help soldiers evacuate.
Chris cast thousands of English men to be apart of this film. A lot of them are new and a couple have worked with Chris before in his past films, Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy. I think Cillian did a terrific job with his performance in “Dunkirk”. He plays a soldier who is so damaged from what he has seen. He shows a great amount of fear of Dunkirk after everything he’s been through. War does that.
Sir Kenneth Branagh is both an experienced actor and a filmmaker himself. Kenneth likes to see other directors at work and learn what they are capable of. What Kenneth saw in Christopher was someone who gives everyone on set exactly what they need in order to prepare themselves for a scene. Kenneth thought Christopher Nolan was so unique and a brilliant man as well. And knows how to make good use of his time as he is working.
Mark Rylance has worked with a lot of directors in his career, but they were nothing like Christopher Nolan. Mark saw other directors as type who don’t pay attention to what’s happening as they are shooting. But Christopher Nolan, Mark saw as a professional, who works closely with his actors. Christopher is very much there physically and is very observant and that made Mark feel like he was in good hands. Christopher Nolan likes to be close with his actors by being on the set or underwater with them. He’s there with them every step of the way. Mark’s character is on a mission to help as many soldiers as he can by getting them out of Dunkirk. Mark studied his part by going to an Imperial War Museum in the UK and finding a lot of recordings of some men who were a rescue team.
Singer Harry Styles has never been in a film before and Christopher Nolan gave him one of the main parts. A lot of young men wanted Harry’s part and Harry himself was lucky enough to have won the part over them. Harry was happy to have been apart of a project like this. Harry doesn’t plan to continue acting though. His music means more to him and he wants to focus more on that in the future. Harry was happy to have his first ever acting role be something special and that’s because Christopher likes to give actors a part unlike anything else.
The actors didn’t have to do that much research on Dunkirk because a lot of people in the UK have been told about it. They did learn some more details about Dunkirk while being apart of this project. They didn't have to pretend it was a war zone because it felt real enough with the environment, the Spitfires flying low over the boats and being on board a battleship. The thing that scared them the most was the underwater sequences. Chris likes things to be as real as they can be in his movies and the main thing he wanted for “Dunkirk” was for the audience to feel that they are actually there with these soldiers. Chris was right. Watching this movie makes you really want the soldiers to succeed in escaping and seeing it in IMAX really helped. Hearing those bombing explosions were really loud to hear and almost hurt my ears in an IMAX theater.
With the budget he was given, Chris had bought a few airplanes that resembled real Spitfires. The production team had to redesign those planes on the outside in order to make them look like Spitfires. Chris wanted the aerial story to be told in a new and different way. Chris wanted there to be several shots of the airplanes in the sky from all sorts of different angles and positions.
Chris and his team would try to get the IMAX camera in places they’ve never got before and really try to bring the audience in the cockpit. A pilot would go up into the sky while the IMAX camera would shoot side shots or close up shots. They would fly up then go back down so that Chris could take a look at the footage. Then Chris would put a new set of film into the camera and shoot the next take in a different way. A camera would be mounted on the wing of the plane to get close up shots of the person flying the plane. Tom Hardy can’t fly, but he and the other two actors who play the Spitfire pilots would go up into the sky in a two seater Spitfires and they would have to pretend they were flying the plane while the camera got close up shots of them in it. Watching those Spitfire sequences in IMAX made me feel like I was flying in the sky and that’s what Christopher wanted his audience to experience.
There was huge storms during the first two weeks of shooting. It was wet, it was raining, it was cold, but they needed that because it’s not a peaceful zone they were creating, it was a war zone. The tides were strong just like the original events. It made Chris and his cinematographer, Hoyte Van Hoytema, want to shoot as soon as possible. There was times those tides would take the cast and crew by surprise as they were shooting a scene. The tides weren’t always great. They tore down some of the sets and those sets had to be rebuild. Chris would just have his crew shoot a different sequence while the sets were being rebuilt.
Producer Emma Thomas said "we’re so used to watching any film about war and seeing the heroes at the end, but “Dunkirk” is different from what we’ve seen before because it’s about trying to escape a war zone."
Tom Hardy’s character is running out of gas and he’s concerned about that, but he still wants to for fill his duties in making sure the German planes don’t ruin the evacuation. Tom Hardy is doing his best to make sure no German plane touches the boats and the lives of those soldiers. I was thrilled to see Tom Hardy’s character make a safe landing on land with the Spitfire as it was completely out of gas, but then I got disappointed that the Germans found him and took him away. Still he is a hero for saving all those lives and making sure they escaped by taking out the German planes. A lot of lives were lost, but the others were spared thanks to him. I’m glad everyone else made it.
