The Pitters' Place

8.5/10

Slow to get going, but visually amazing and really really emotionally satisfying if you have the patience for it.

Haven't seen it yet but I heard an interview with Nolan where he talked about wanting to de-emphasize dialogue and focus more on visual storytelling for Dunkirk, which gives me hope for his future as a filmmaker considering the flaws of his last several films.

Raxivace wrote:Haven't seen it yet but I heard an interview with Nolan where he talked about wanting to de-emphasize dialogue and focus more on visual storytelling for Dunkirk, which gives me hope for his future as a filmmaker considering the flaws of his last several films.

Well, that's the best thing he could have said. My biggest problem with him has always been that his movies are too talky and that he doesn't understand or appreciate how to tell a story visually instead of having his characters tell us everything that's going on like we're dumbasses.

What format did you see it in? Apparently there's 6 different formats it's showing in. The best is only available in about 35 theaters in the US.

I have tickets to see it tomorrow; in 70mm (not IMAX). If I really like it; I'll probably make a 2.5 hour each way trip to see the 70mm IMAX showing.

Raxivace wrote:Haven't seen it yet but I heard an interview with Nolan where he talked about wanting to de-emphasize dialogue and focus more on visual storytelling for Dunkirk, which gives me hope for his future as a filmmaker considering the flaws of his last several films.

Yes, quite. There is very little dialogue in this one.

What format did you see it in? Apparently there's 6 different formats it's showing in. The best is only available in about 35 theaters in the US.

I have tickets to see it tomorrow; in 70mm (not IMAX). If I really like it; I'll probably make a 2.5 hour each way trip to see the 70mm IMAX showing.

70 mm (not IMAX). I might go see it at the IMAX. It was quite stunning.

Derived Absurdity wrote:

Raxivace wrote:Haven't seen it yet but I heard an interview with Nolan where he talked about wanting to de-emphasize dialogue and focus more on visual storytelling for Dunkirk, which gives me hope for his future as a filmmaker considering the flaws of his last several films.

Well, that's the best thing he could have said. My biggest problem with him has always been that his movies are too talky and that he doesn't understand or appreciate how to tell a story visually instead of having his characters tell us everything that's going on like we're dumbasses.

Yeah. I think that's what added to the emotional suspense. You're watching this story unfold from three different perspectives, waiting for them to become relevant to each other, and then they do and it's very satisfying. But, like you said, Nolan steers clear of explaining everything, which is nice.

I haven't seen the film, but I do know a lot about the history (I've read a lot of history about WW2 and know more than is probably healthy for most folk)...

The one thing I saw about this that depressed me/concerned me was an interview with the two young stars and when they were asked what the film was about they said "it all takes place some time in the 30's or 40's"! Which (at best) suggests they couldn't be bothered remembering or finding out the actual year (let alone the month or dates). Or (at worst) that they think it's a fictional story and it just has a setting in "that period".

Just got out of the movie and quite liked it overall. I know Nolan mentioned being influenced by silent cinema and such, but I was surprised by how much I found myself thinking of Intolerance and even Battleship Potemkin to an extent while watching this- namely in the structure of the film with the cutting between Hardy/Rylance/the other guy, and also how they're meant to be less fully realized characters and more stand-ins for the diversity of an entire people, if that makes (Which perhaps makes it more nuanced than Battleship Potemkin's more propagandized depictions of the Soviets but whatever I'm half asleep and am badly in need of a nap). Even the one intertitle in the film's beginning kind of feels like it was written for that kind of film.

Also it was kind of funny how after all of the exposition of Inception and Interstellar the most we get in the movie is this:



If I had a major complaint its that I think that Interstellar probably had some stronger imagery overall, but was generally less effectively used than what Dunkirk did and had- the plane gliding at the end seems to genuinely hit hard, for example.

Dunkirk seems like a move in the right direction for Nolan after all.

^ Nolan is also a huge Quay Bros. fan. I keep hoping some of their aesthetic magic will rub on him. Alas not (so far, at least).

I'm really looking forward to seeing this. I'm going to take my dad, it is so rare that we both want to see the same film. I haven't seen much of Nolan's work but I loved Inception and The Prestige is one of my favourite films.