Christopher Nolan is a very cool director. He makes very cool movies. That’s great for fantasy or science fiction but for a war-themed movie like «Dunkirk» his modus operandi is an unusual approach. The movie is gorgeous to look at, but if it wasn’t for Hans Zimmer’s excellent soundtrack, I wouldn’t have felt much watching it.
Depicting war as a force of nature without any real antagonist doesn’t help either. But that’s not really a problem because «Dunkirk» was not made to be a war movie.
The funny thing is that while the movie might lack emotions by identification, it is still better described as a feeling than as a movie. A thing to be experienced, not watched as a traditional hero’s journey motion picture (Terrence Malick comes to mind). And it does a very good job at it.
All in all, watching «Dunkirk» and «Darkest Hour» back-to-back was a lucky happenstance, making one damn fine double feature movie night with two sides of the same precious coin.