Dunkirk: Round 2

     Expectations can either be a movie’s best friend or its worst enemy. There’s nothing like the feeling of getting amped up for a new release and having it meet or even exceed all that you could’ve hoped for. Maybe you get dragged to the theatre to see something you have no excitement for and get pleasantly surprised. On the flip side, you can have such monumental expectations for a movie that can never be met. That makes it really hard to feel satisfied after you leave the theatre. The weight that people put on huge event films like The Force Awakens make it hard for expectations to be met.

     For me and I think a lot of other people, a new Christopher Nolan movie is always one of those event releases. I wrote an article recently about how I think Nolan is starting to over value visuals and spectacle over story. While I still think that, I feel that the hopes I had for his latest movie, Dunkirk, were never going to be met. I got the chance to see the it a second time in IMAX and realized how much I appreciate the film. I still don’t think it’s Christopher Nolan at the top of his game but I do think it’s an amazing achievement in cinema. I was really unsure of what I thought about Dunkirk the first time I left the theatre. It’s because the movie is so different from anything else out there. I don’t think we’ve ever gotten something that is such a theatre experience as this film. Will it transfer well to the small screen? Unfortunately, probably not. However, it doesn’t matter because that’s not what it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be a movie that takes complete advantage of all the top of the line sound and visual technology that’s out there, to create a completely engrossing experience. This film is as much Hans Zimmer’s as it is Christopher Nolan’s. The score compliments the action so well and adds so much to the visuals that you feel like you’re right in the middle of it all. It’s not very traditional, making use of a lot of different sounds like bullet fire and clock ticking. It might not be something great to listen to on its own but when it gets combined with everything else, it works and becomes just as important as the story, cinematography, or dialogue.

     Seeing Dunkirk a second time and getting the chance to form a more solid opinion on it reminded me how important it is to rewatch movies. Ideally, you see something and fall in love with it. However, there's probably a lot of instances when you're opinion on a movie has changed. Sometimes, you need to see it again detached from all the hopes and expectations you had for it the first time. Other times, you’ve had new life experiences and been opened up to other perspectives that help you relate to a story and have it really resonate with you. It’s one of the greatest things about cinema. Your opinions are constantly evolving and a movie you saw 5 years ago can be a completely new experience the next time around.