The film for me was excellent because it was from the point of view of a group of specific individuals who probably had no idea what was going on most of the time. You feel truly immersed in their world. I liked the fact that we got to see this instead of having the outsider view and having everything explained to us through full scale descriptions and filming the usual swathes of troops, planes and ships. Nolan could have easily gone for the large battle scenes or perhaps some scenes showing the politicians making decisions and giving orders but the story was purely from the views of a few individuals. I much preferred this small-scale and tense approach, which you call boring, but which I would call suspenseful and dramatic. For me, it is a different take on a war where you are truly feeling what a single soldier went through. And Nolan managed to do this without showing one German.
I really don't like comparing apples to oranges, or a specific film to another, but in this case I really have no choice. Saving Private Ryan - yes, obvious and easy choice here, but for all of Nolan's talk of Dunkirk being "like VR" which is absolute bollocks, and him trying to be David Cameron, it was anything but immersive for me because of the terrible lack of anything to latch onto as a viewer, figuratively, contextually, or character wise. I couldn't give a bollocks about any one of the soldiers because of that. They'd no names. All they were were faces. Nothing to connect to at all. Now, going back to Private Ryan, for example, character wise, it wasn't the best film, but it had little interludes throughout the film that game a break from the action sequences, and allowed the viewer to take a breather and get to know some of the characters, at least a little. What that lead to was a scene that had far more impact than the opening 15 minutes of that film (as incredible as that was) and resonated far more than anything that what Nolan was even trying to hint at in a full hours and 30 minutes or so. The scene I'm on about is when Wade gets wounded and eventually dies in the arms of his squadmates. It felt more real and impactful because of the intimate nature of it. Why? Because you felt bonded with the soldiers. Nothing immerses you more in a film than feeling connection with the characters and having a compelling story behind them. Dunkirk had none of that save for a man on a boat with his two sons. Fascinating stuff.
But let's talk about some of the contrived stuff to attempt to create some tension. The scene where
Spoiler
Harry Styles and the boys (I don't recall any of them mentioning their names, and if they did, I didn't care) decide to take refuge in a boat and wait for the tide to come in. Queue unrealistic cartoon shenanigans, as a squad of unseen German troops (we don't even know if it was because we never seen the fuckers once in the entire film) inexplicably decide to take some target practice at the boat, thus putting some lovely holes in it for it to fill with water, creating some tension and drama for us to feel fear for the unnamed soldiers. Yes, a German unit that has somehow managed to infiltrate (no doubt it happened to some degree) the perimeter of stationed French Algerian, Belgian and British rearguard, suddenly thinks that taking a few shots at a boat, for target practice, in enemy territory, is a great idea? What a load of contrived bollocks. See, that's the problem with a lack of character development or any real sense of context or narrative. When you do try to fill your film with stuff to keep the viewer interested, it falls to bits when you add ridiculous scenarios like that, stuff that wouldn't be out of place on the A-Team. Tune in next week to see if BA and Hannibal get out of this one.
Nolan might get away with that sort of thing with Batman, or in a sci-fi like Inception, but for a supposed historically accurate and realistic accounting of a real life event? No. Sorry, but no.
