Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk Is a Masterpiece

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Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk Is a Masterpiece

ByChristopher Orr

Epic yet intimate, the director’s new war film is boldly experimental and visually stunning. 史诗感与温情并存，诺兰的新战争片新锐大胆，震撼视觉。

What isDunkirk?

The answer is more complicated than one might imagine. Director Christopher Nolan’s latest is a war film, of course, yet one in which the enemy scarcely makes an appearance. It is a$150 million epic, yet also as lean and spare as a haiku, three brief, almost wordless strands of narrative woven together in a mere 106 minutes of running time. It is classic in its themes—honor,duty, the horror of war—yet simultaneously Nolan’s most radical experiment sinceMemento. And for all these reasons, it is a masterpiece.

[2] The historical moment captured by the film ascended long ago to the level of martial lore: In May 1940, in the early days of World War II, some 400,000 British and Allied troops were flanked and entrapped by Germany on the beaches of Dunkirk in northern France. Although the Channel was narrow enough that the men could almost see across to England, the waters were too shallow for warships to approach the beaches. So a flotilla of some 700 civilian craft—the “Little Ships of Dunkirk”—made their way from Ramsgate in England to assist in the rescue.

[3] When it was announced that Nolan intended to make a film about the evacuation, it was easy to anticipate a kind ofSaving Private Ryanin reverse,departing rather than landing upon a French beach. In classic war epic form,there would be the buildup and laying out of context, the unfurling of backstories, the explanation of geography,the rolling waves of sentiment, the tectonic running time. Instead, Nolan has stripped his fi lm bare of such trappings.There are no generals making plans around tables, no loved ones worrying back home, no Winston Churchill. Just the men and the beach and the sea and the sky.

[4] Apart from a handful of Luftwaffe planes, there aren’t even any Nazis,merely the knowledge that their artillery lies over the hills and their U-boats prowl beneath the waves. They are less an enemy than an existential threat, and at timesDunkirkfeels less like a war film than a disaster movie. Except for the aerial dogfights, there is no “fighting,” and certainly no “winning.” There is simplynot dying.

[5] Nolan’s three stories take place on land, on sea, and in the air, and although they are intercut with surgical precision, they take place over three separate but overlapping spans of time. Over the course of a week, a young British soldier (Fionn Whitehead) makes his way to the beach at Dunkirk, there to wait with the masses of his fellows for a rescue that may or may not arrive.Over the course of a day, a British civilian (Mark Rylance) and two teenagers pilot his small wooden yacht across the Channel to save whomever they can.And over the course of an hour, an RAF Spit fi re pilot (Tom Hardy) tussles with the Luftwaffe in the skies, trying to protect the men below. Occasionally these narratives intersect, but more often they merely offer alternative vantages,aRashomonin which the separate tales are intended to enrich rather than confound one another.

[6] I hesitate to write more about the plot (or plots), in part because “plot”seems almost an improper descriptive term. These are shards of story, at once intimate and clinical. There are moments of harrowing intensity and of profound humanity. Some men live,some die. There is not a great deal of time devoted to their individual characters and motivations, in part because in the latter case they aren’t particularly individual at all: The motivation is to survive. Whether it is to return home to wives or sweethearts or an empty fl at is beside the point.

[7] Rylance telegraphs human decency in that customarily exquisite Rylance manner, even when things go terribly wrong with a shell-shocked soldier (Cillian Murphy) he has rescued from the waves. Kenneth Branagh and James D’Arcy display stoic concern as,respectively, the senior naval and army officers on “the mole,” a heavy breakwater jutting into the sea and repurposed to function as a makeshift dock.And, along with Whitehead, relative acting unknowns Jack Lowden, Aneurin Barnard, and Harry Styles (whom Nolan was reportedly unaware was a member of One Direction when he cast him)capture the youth and essential interchangeability of the frightened troops.

[8] To top it off with an inside joke,Hardy’s pilot’s face is covered by goggles and a fl ight mask, marking the third time in fi ve years (followingMad Max:Fury Roadand Nolan’s ownThe Dark Knight Rises) that he has had to act with his face largely obscured. Not that there is ever any doubt about the owner of those large, evocative eyes.

[9] But ultimatelyDunkirkbelongs to Nolan and cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, who have crafted the rare fi lm that positively demands to be seen on a large screen. The movie was shot entirely on large-format fi lm (75 percent of it IMAX) and it is being released in 70-mm projection in a remarkable 125 theaters across the country. As George Miller did two years ago withFury Road, Nolan has made the film using practical effects rather than CGI whenever possible—he even spent $5 million on a vintage Luftwaffe plane in order to crash it—and the difference is palpable.Rarely has the beauty of aerial fl ight (or the unpleasantness of its failure) been captured so vividly.

[10] The Battle of Dunkirk has always been that most remarkable of war stories: an utter rout reframed—and rightly so—as an iconic victory. At the end of Nolan’s film, when one of the returning men is congratulated, he muses, “All we did is survive.” The reply: “That’s enough.” But it was much more than that. Had those Allied troops not been saved, the history of the war would have been vastly different. And it is hard to imagine a better tribute to this victory of survival than Nolan’s spare,stunning, extraordinarily ambitious fi lm.

《敦刻尔克》是什么？答案比想象的要复杂。克里斯托弗·诺兰执导的新作当然是一部战争片，然而片中却鲜见敌人露面。这是一部投资1.5亿美元的史诗巨构，但又如俳句般凝练而空灵，三段几乎没有台词的简短叙述串联起106分钟的时长。影片讲述了荣誉、责任和战争的恐怖——主题经典，同时却又是诺兰继《记忆碎片》之后最离经叛道的实验之作。而且，正因为这些特征，本片堪称杰作。

[2]该片剪取的历史时刻，早已升华到军事传奇的高度：1940年5月，时为二战前期，约40万英军和盟军在法国北部敦刻尔克海滩被德军从侧翼包抄围困。尽管海峡窄到可以隐约望到对岸的英格兰，过浅的水深却阻碍了战舰靠近海滩。因此，一支约700艘民船组成的船队——“敦刻尔克的小船”——从英格兰拉姆斯盖特出发驰援。

[3]在宣布诺兰要把这次撤退搬上银幕的时候，人们不难预期这将是《拯救大兵瑞恩》的倒映版，即从法国海岸撤退而非在此登陆。按照经典战争片的形式，将会有叙事框架的创设和铺陈、背景故事的展开、地理环境的阐释、澎湃的情感，以及板块化的时间。然而并没有。诺兰在本片中把这些套路抽离殆尽。不再有围坐的将军运筹帷幄，后方的家人牵肠挂肚，也不见温斯顿·丘吉尔。军人、海滩、大海、天空——仅此。

[4]除了几架德国空军的飞机，影片中甚至没有任何纳粹，唯有他们炮兵就在山那边、他们的U型潜艇潜伏在波涛之下这类虚无缥缈的讯息。他们与其说是具体的敌人，毋宁说是抽象的生存威胁，而且有时《敦刻尔克》看起来不像战争片，而更像灾难片。除了空中交锋，片中没有“战斗”，当然也没有“赢”。连死亡都干脆省略。

[5]诺兰的三则故事发生在陆上、海上和空中，且在三个相互独立但又交叠的时段，不过情节切换如外科手术般精确。年轻的英军士兵（菲翁·怀特海德饰）一周之内跋涉到敦刻尔克海滩，在此与大部队的战友一起等待前景莫测的救援。一个英国平民（马克·莱兰斯饰）和两个十多岁的少年操纵他的木质游船一日之内横跨海峡，见人就救。皇家空军地狱火飞行员（汤姆·哈迪饰）一小时之内在空中与德国空军缠斗，努力掩护地面的同袍。这几条叙事线索偶尔交汇，但多数时候仅互为交替视角，这是一出《罗生门》，内里各个故事的目的在于丰富其他故事，而不是互相颠覆。

[6]笔者不愿就情节（或多重情节）过多着墨，部分原因在于用“情节”一词来描述似乎有失恰当。它们是故事的碎片，既温情脉脉又实证冷峻。一些片段富于震撼的张力和深刻的人性。有些人活着，有些人死了。影片没有太多的个人性格和动机刻画，部分原因在于他们的动机并非特别个人化：当时的动机就是活下去。至于是回乡与妻子或爱人团聚，还是回到空荡荡的公寓，则已无关紧要。

[7]莱兰斯从波涛中救获的士兵（西利安·墨菲饰）被弹壳震晕，情况极其糟糕，但他仍通过其熟稔的精湛演技传递了人性的尊严。在深入大海被用作临时码头的重型防波堤“鼹鼠”上，分别由肯尼思·布拉纳夫和詹姆士·达西饰演的海军和陆军军官体现的则是刚毅坚忍。还有，相对默默无闻的杰克·洛登、安纽林·巴纳德以及哈里·斯泰尔斯（据说诺兰在选角时并不知道他是“单向组合”成员）与怀特海德一道，成功还原出惶恐军士们的青涩及其可替代的本质。

[8]最后说一则内幕笑话。哈迪饰演的飞行员的面部被眼镜和飞行面罩遮盖，这是他五年来（继《疯狂的麦克斯：狂暴之路》以及诺兰自己的《黑暗骑士崛起》之后）第三次大面积蒙面出镜。尽管如此，没人怀疑他那大而有神的双眸。

[9]但归根到底，《敦刻尔克》属于诺兰和影片的摄影师霍伊特·凡霍伊特玛，他们的雕琢使本片务必在大屏幕上观赏方得其所。全片用大画幅胶片（75%为IMAX）拍摄，在全美125个影院用70毫米放映机放映，非同凡响。与乔治·米勒两年前在《狂暴之路》中的手法雷同，诺兰尽可能摒弃计算机成像而转向现场特效——他甚至耗资500万美元制作了一架老式德军战机，仅仅为了让它坠毁——效果高下立判。很少有人将空中飞行的美感（及其失败的不适感）描绘得如此栩栩如生。

[10]敦刻尔克战役永远是战争故事的极致：一场绝境溃败被重塑为标志性胜利，当然这无可厚非。在诺兰电影的末尾，一位回乡的士兵面对祝贺，若有所思地说：“我们所做的只是活下来而已。”回答则是：“那就足够了。”但实际意义远远不止这个。如果这些盟军士兵未能获救，战争的历史将面目全非。致敬这段关于幸存的历史，很难想象还有什么作品能超越诺兰的这部影片：空灵，震撼，雄心爆棚。

《敦刻尔克》：诺兰的重磅之作

文/克里斯托弗·奥尔译/杨树锋

（译者单位：其礼律师事务所上海办公室）