Dunkirk/Darkest Hour

 In 2017 within six months two films were released that told different viewpoints of the same larger story.  In the late spring of 1940 several months into World War II, Europe was reacting slowly and ineffectively to Germany's unexpected blitzkrieg tactics.  The German forces had taken over most of France and driven the French troops, along with about 400,000 British troops, who were trying to help defend France, onto the beaches of Dunkirk in Northeastern France, which is 38 nautical miles across the English channel.  The British felt an urgent need to rescue their forces both for their safety and because these troops might be the only hope of keeping Germany from invading Great Britain.  

Two top English directors made films exploring this crisis during the same period.  Christopher Nolan made Dunkirk, which told the story from the perspective of the soldiers, sailors, and pilots.  Joe Wright made Darkest Hour in which newly instated Prime Minister Winston Churchill who has to deal with getting the resources to help the soldiers as his first test.  Joe Wright previously made Atonement which included a four minute scene in which James McAvoy's character walks across the Dunkirk beach while all the troops were awaiting evacuation.

In Darkest Hour Wright's biggest challenge is making a film set in boardrooms and Parliament and starring mainly old white men compelling.  He tackles it through a few different methods.  For starters he tells a lot of the story from the point of view of Churchill's secretary, Elizabeth Layton, played by Lily James which allows Wright to face head on a lot of the criticisms of Churchill.  We meet Churchill along with her, in a scene that apparently was pretty accurate, as Churchill immediately berates her for getting the spacing wrong on something she was typing for him, although she actually started working for Churchill a year later.  Wright manages to let us like this monster by having Churchill's wife, Clementine, played beautifully by Kristen Scott Thomas, chew out Churchill for bullying Elizabeth, and from that point on Churchill treats her respectfully, while never failing to be a curmudgeon.   

At the start of the film the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain is removed from office due to the growing Nazi threat.  Chamberlain was part of the Conservative Party but the opposing Labour Party insists on removing Chamberlain because he had not done enough to confront the growing Nazi threat in the 1930s, in particular, had signed the Munich Agreement which allowed Germany to take over part of Czechoslovakia which emboldened Hitler to become more aggressive.  The two parties can only agree by default on Churchill who no one really likes due to his abrasive personality and many questionable decisions from his past.  In the story Churchill has to fight off attempts to remove him from power for not agreeing to sign a peace treaty with Hitler (effectively continuing Chamberlain's appeasement policy) and  more urgently, finding a way to bring the troops home from Dunkirk.  

Wright also adds energy by using a lot of dramatic letterings giving the date (and having it drop onto the screen) and punctuates it with bong like sound effects.  Composer Dario Marionelli, who has worked with Wright several times before, produces a score that is as ferocious as Churchill in some of the biggest scenes but uses a soft piano for other quieter moments.  My favorite is the "We Shall Fight" cue.  The cinematography by Bruno Delbonnel stays true to the title and keeps a lot of the rooms dark, especially the moment in which Churchhill first appears onscreen, which is done slowly with the light coming onto him alone in bed, as it might in a theatre.

The MVP of the film of course is Gary Oldman, playing The British Bulldog, a character who has been played countless times by other actors, at the same time John Lithgow was earning raves for playing him on the Netflix series The Crown.  Oldman to me is like Meryl Streep or Anthony Hopkins, in that any role he plays will be with full commitment and even if the film does not work, he will be memorable.  Oldman has played many real life characters before like Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK, Herman Mankiewicz and has played a mix of heroic (Gordon in the Dark Knight series) and villainous  (Mason Verger in Hannibal) men.  Oldman looks nothing like the stout Churchill but an Oscar winning makeup job convinces us we are watching The British Bulldog pretty early on, along with the high pitched voice.  Oldman more than delivers in the big moments as expected (his funniest line is "Stop interrupting me while I am interrupting you") and the famous speech to Parliament in which he rouses the British to resist the German forces.  I was most moved by the long scene filmed in one take in which he has to abandon his dignity and asks FDR for American assistance over the phone.  Oldman has Churchill for the first time express real doubt and the audience for the first time realizes he is fully aware of how vulnerable the British position is.  Wright's decision to keep FDR as an offscreen voice, played with arrogant fake empathy offscreen by David Straitharn, helps emphasize Churchill (and Britain's) isolation.  

Some of the most notable scenes in The Crown are when the Queen meets with the Prime Minister and this film creates several moments in which Churchill meets with her father, King George VI played by Ben Mendlesohn. King George was memorably played by Colin Firth in The King's Speech and Jared Harris in The Crown but Mendelsohn creates his own understated version, who gradually comes to trust Churchill despite his close personal connection with Chamberlain.  The first scene in which Churchill openly admits that he naps in the afternoon is one of many in which Churchill is unapologetic about his offbeat habits.

Historical films always take liberties with their stories which is fine by me.  A film needs to work on its own terms and life is too messy for the dramatic lines that films need to work on.  A beauty of a scene, which never occurred in real life, is Churchill's visit to the Underground where he finds a public that admires and agrees with him much more than many members of Parliament do.  Everyone in the Underground is initially starstruck by him (many of the most fun moments are as people gradually realize the PM is on the train with them) but answer his feedback honestly.  This, along with Churchill's brainchild Operation Dynamo, the decision to commandeer personal boats to ferry the British troops back to the mainland, helped turn the tide of the war, though its effects were not felt for a couple of years.  

Wright's film is nearly as electric as Churchill himself.  Oldman won a long deserved Academy Award for playing this controversial, flawed, but ultimately heroic figure who in solving the Dunkirk problem provided the first real resistance to Hitler.  ****

Dunkirk is a change of pace for Christopher Nolan.  Nolan's non Batman films usually have some kind of sci-fi or supernatural element, use complex plotting, are long, learn more on practical effects than CGI, and use time as a story telling device.  Only the last two of those applies here.  Nolan tells three stories concurrently.  First he shows the plight of the soldiers stranded on the beach over the course of a week, the boaters who came to rescue them over the course of a day, and the British pilots providing protection is one hour.  They are all cut together which creates an extra layer for the plot but it is not hard to get ones' bearings and is the only fun element of the film.  Dunkirk lasts only 105 minutes and takes place very much in the real world. though unlike The Darkest Hour, uses fictional characters based on real people. 

Many known actors and Nolan regulars appear such as Tom Hardy as a pilot named Farrier, Kenneth Branagh as a British commander, Mark Rylance as a civilian yacht owner and Cillian Murphy as a troubled soldier.  Additional members of the cast include: Fionn Whitehead, Harry Styles, and Barry Keoghan.  Michael Caine, who has participated in every Nolan film since Batman Begins, is heard giving instructions to Farrier near the beginning over the radio.

The story is intense and harrowing but not gruesome.  In the opening scene the tone is set when a loud gunshot kicks off a British soldier's narrow escape from an ambush in which he ends up the beach.  We see no German soldiers but feel the relentless intensity of their attack with the sound design and establishes how the British have been pushed to one corner.  Nolan manages to avoid showing any Germans on camera until the very end of the film which keeps the focus on the British trying to survive but does not villainize their opponents.   The one soldier survives while four of his friends are killed showing the random nature of warfare.

The story of the soldiers on the beach who are just trying to avoid being killed is the hardest to watch because the men are defenseless against the air attacks.  The randomness of the Hurricane attacks, especially when the men are on the mole, unable to run for cover, establishes the hopelessness of the situation which is exacerbated when the ship many manage to get onto is sunk.  The production design and the natural environment make the beach look inhospitable.  The weather is cloudy, it looks like it's very cold and the high tide presents dangerous challenges of its own.  Nolan has cast the film with many young actors who believably look completely unprepared for this horror.  In the scene where several are hiding in a boat 

Mark Rylance's Mr. Dawson represents the many civilians who answers Churchill's call for assistance for Operation Dynamo which was referenced and glimpsed briefly in The Darkest Hour.  Rylance has a  dignity that usually comes across onscreen and befits this character, who feels a personal responsibility to help the soldiers, perhaps because he has lost his older son in battle.  Rylance gives Mr. Dawson an unironic sense of purpose that he is eager to bestow onto his son and their young boat hand who Mr. Dawson lets come along.  However he seems a little naive to the dangers.  They are not just going to rescue people but are potentially heading unarmed into enemy fire.  As it turns out the biggest danger comes from a British  solider played by Cillian Murphy who is suffering from PTSD.  Dawson tries treating him patiently but the soldier's uneasiness combined with Nolan's still direction tells us something bad is going to happen.  Sadly the person who loses out is George who suffers a fatal head injury after the solider tries to take over the boat.  Yet, one of the most humane moments comes later when Mr. Dawson's son Peter tries to convince the soldier that George actually survived.  

In the midst of these scenes Nolan and his editor Lee Smith cut in a scene of Murphy's character showing leadership before so we understand that war is the culprit of his actions, not the man himself who slowly comes out of his state after the attack on George.

The most exciting sequences as the Spitfire dogfights.  The British start off with three fighters which eventually dwindle down to one, piloted by Farrier.  Tom Hardy appears with most of his face covered for the second time in a Nolan film, after The Dark Knight Rises.  Cinematographer Hoyte van  Hoytema working on his second Nolan film, after doing an excellent job on Interstellar, filmed many of these sequences in Imax, using a periscope lens that could move throughout the cockpit and capture POV and other planes in the combat.  Farrier has limited fuel and Nolan has him write down how much time he has so the audience is constantly aware of the limitations.  Farrier proves to be a superb pilot and saves the day several times, but most notably at the end when instead of returning to base he sacrifices his freedom to shoot down a German dive bomber threatening remaining soldiers on the beach.  The camerawork shows Farrier's plan gliding to a landing on the beach, in one of the few graceful moments of the film.  The shot of the burning plane in the background, with Farrier's face onscreen for the first time as we see him taken prisoner since he was forced to land beyond the beach, is powerful.  We do not know what awaits him but it probably will not be pleasant.    

 Hans Zimmer uses one of his more complex scores which is felt particularly in these moments.  Zimmer's score sounds like a siren mixed with a ticking clock.  Zimmer uses three different Shepherd's Scales, which are numerous tones separated by octaves layered on top of each other.  The higher treble fades out as the lowest bass fades in and then it repeats which sells the suspense because it makes a musical pitch sounds like it is rising.  Because there are three different time periods in the film Zimmer uses three versions of the scale, with the fastest pace being the Spitfire scenes which take place over the shortest period.  At the end of the film when the three stories interject, so does the music which plays all three together.   

Nolan closes the film with the soldiers on a train reading Churchill's "We shall fight on the beaches" speech from the end of The Darkest Hour (and history) in a newspaper which links the two stories.  They are temporarily safe but the fight is only beginning.  ****

I did initially engage in this exercise to rate one film against the other but since we are here I will give a few points.

Performances: Darkest Hour for Oldman's work as Churchill.  Every performance in Dunkirk is also strong with my favorite being Rylance.

Cinematography: Dunkirk, especially for the Spitfire scenes

Music: Zimmer's score is truly innovative but I prefer Marionelli's score as a listening experience

Production Design: Draw, the Parliament sets in Darkest Hour are very impressive as are the Dunkirk locations, especially the titular one.

Dialogue: Darkest Hour

Editing: Dunkirk

Winner is: Dunkirk but seriously, watch them both.  My recommendation would be to start with Darkest Hour.