Dunkirk

This is Christopher Nolan's first "straight" historical film (Prestige, of course, being somewhat historically inaccurate). It's also one of his best films - largely because it avoids a lot of the things Nolan can be iffy with (basically, dialogue and characterization) and doubles down on the sensation and immersion. The focus is pretty tight on three perspectives on the same historical event - one young man trying to escape from the beach by any means necessary, one little boat getting across the channel to try to save men from the beach, and one pilot trying to shoot down the luftwaffe that may impede the escape. All three are in asynchronous timelines - the escape from the beach covering a week, the boat covering a day, the dogfighing an hour. They're unified by Hans Zimmer's ever-present, ticking clock of a score, and by links that become increasingly less subtle as the film moves on.

Only the middle of these really resembles a conventional telling of this kinda story - the slow boat across the sea allows time for dialogue (it's also, incidentally, basically a version of the plot of the film-within-"Their Finest" from earlier in the year). It's here where there are a couple of too-on-the-nose conversations, with Mark Rylance being the one largely in charge of delivering them (and I do wish film-makers would find a way to use Rylance's flair for comedy - he seems continuously morose on film, and if I hadn't seen him on stage I'd never know he has comic verve and unstoppable energy). But much of the film is on the epic immersive track that reminds me most of "Gravity" from about 5 years ago - like "Gravity", it will probably lose most of its power once it moves to DVD and streaming TV, but in the cinema, it's a compelling experience. As pure sensation, this is astounding. As storytelling, something less.