I saw the movie a few days ago. I was pleasantly surprised by what was achieved through non-linear narration. I think this time there's real purpose to this type of narration.
I guess most of you saw their share of war documentaries and interviews. One thing that connects most of the experiences of the survivors is torment and sometimes even shame for their acts.
Most of those veterans say they never stop dreaming about the moment they failed to help a fellow fighter. It never stops haunting them, the thought that perhaps they could have done more, perhaps they could have saved at least one more. What if they went back and checked that basement one more time? What if they arrived 5 minutes earlier, maybe that hospital wouldn't get bombed...? What if acted differently. The guilt, the regret.
And the never ending shame if they acted selfishly and saved themselves and didn't manage to gather enough strength and bravery to help others.
Non-linear narration is nothing new and many may say it's getting a bit old. However, in Dunkirk the viewer is offered the entire causality through this non-linearity. He gets to see what happens, what would happen and what happens next, he gets to see how little he could have done. How single person's efforts simply get blown by the immensity of chaos of war.
This is really liberating for the soul. I hope, no matter how old they may be today, I hope at least few veterans of Dunkirk got a chance to see this movie.
I think this is a far more successful war movie than most, precisely for this reason. It is in fact concerned with an unknown "little man" who witnessed it all and it is not trying to disperse the horrors of war, but it could disperse the nightmares that come after.
(I didn't want to end with such pathos, pardon me)
