Dunkirk and the Slow Death: A Movie About Nothing

Christopher Nolan proves once again how easily dazzled people are when something seems deep, because, I suppose, Dunkirk seems like a deep movie, all about the desperation of war and whatnot; but, really, Dunkirk is a movie about nothing. It is a movie that says nothing. It is a movie that does nothing. Well, nothing other than lazily follow the pseudo-protagonist around as he spends the movie running away.

In fact, nearly the whole movie is about running away. It's a movie about running away that is capped off by Winston Churchill's famous we-will-fight-them-everywhere speech.

I know. That's so deep. Except that it's not.

It also contains a bunch of purposeless non-linear elements. And don't get me wrong; I have nothing against non-linear story telling... as long as it serves the purpose of the story, but this felt more like it was there because people expect it of Nolan. You know, it's his signature thing so he has to include it even if it doesn't belong in this movie. So what we get is incongruous shots of a mid-day dog fight cut with scenes of a ship sinking in the middle of the night.

Oh! But maybe that's deep!
No, not really. It's just sloppy, bad story telling.
And that doesn't even touch on how we cut back to the same dog fight toward the end of the movie but seen from a different character's perspective.
Basically, the whole movie is out of sequence. None of it serves the story. And some of it is actually conflicting.

But, you know, Nolan is so deep.

I'm not even going to talk about the acting. Generally speaking, the actors all seemed bored. I think Nolan wanted them to seem bored, so I suppose that's good acting, but it makes a movie that comes in at only about one hour and forty-five minutes feel like you were watching it for three. But, maybe, my problem was that I didn't watch it in the theater. I wasn't fully immersed in the bigness of it.
Except that it's really a small movie.

Look, let's use the potty meter to measure this movie. In a good movie, you don't want to have to get up and go to the bathroom because you're worried you might miss something but, in this movie, you could have gone to take a nice long dump and come back to find that you missed... nothing at all. Maybe some more guys died, because people keep dying all around the pseudo-protagonist, but it's almost certain you wouldn't have missed any important dialogue because there's really not any. Hmm, now I'm wondering how long the movie would be if you kept only the bits with dialogue. 20 minutes?

The biggest issue with the movie is that it is very unclear about who the enemy is. Or any context about what's going on at all. Sure, maybe Nolan just assumes that everyone should know enough about World War II to supply that for themselves, and maybe everyone should, but it's abundantly clear that a vast amount of people don't know anything about World War II and have no context for what's going on. Shithead Nolan couldn't even identify the Nazis as the enemy in the opening text. No, he just says, "They're surrounded by the enemy."

What the actual fuck, Nolan? You can't do better than that? What enemy? Aliens? Goblins? Ravaging hordes of barbarians? No, it was Nazis, and you should have been clear about that.

But, then, it's painfully obvious that this was your go-to for trying to win a best picture Oscar after losing with Interstellar, an artsy movie about WWII. But this movie shouldn't have been nominated at all. It's just a hollow piece of chocolate that is ultimately disappointing because it has no substance. Bad chocolate, at that.

The Voice of Freedom

There's been a lot of talk in the last six months or so about the lack of leadership in the Democratic party, which is true. When Obama left office, he also stepped away from any and, seemingly, all roles of leadership. And that's too bad, because he's the closest thing to a unifying leader the Democrats have right now. But, honestly, it's not a lack of leadership that's the problem.

It's the lack of a voice.

And I don't mean the lack of a voice for the Democratic party; I mean the lack of a voice for Freedom. The Voice of Freedom, right now, is silent.

Which is not to say that there are not rumblings from it, but, so far, since the rise of Trump, no one has picked it up and shouted it with a unifying Voice as key individuals have done in the past:

Abraham Lincoln
Mahatma Gandhi
Winston Churchill
Martin Luther King, Jr.
even Ronald Reagan with his stance against communism in the 80s

Sometimes, that voice is sung, as it was in the late 60s by people like
Bob Dylan
Peter, Paul & Mary
Simon and Garfunkel

Or in the 80s by
U2
The Alarm


Today, the Voice of Freedom is silent and needs to be picked up as a unifying cry against the Voice of Fear that Trump continues to spew out of his horrible maw in the same way that Hitler did.

See, the Voice of Fear is loud and has provided a rallying point for Conservatives (because studies show that Conservatives are more prone to fear and have a much greater fear of change (and, let's face it, the times they are a changin')), and they have responded to that call with a vengeance. A vengeance which includes white supremacists feeling like they have been empowered to murder and terrorize and that that is somehow patriotism (to use the words of a white supremacist terrorist).

Not to go all Star Wars on you, but the Voice of Fear is the Dark Side. It's not more powerful, but it is quicker, easier, more seductive. People like quick and easy and don't like or want to put in the work for Equality and Freedom.

And, just to be clear, the Voice of Freedom is also the Voice of Equality, because real Freedom, true Freedom, cannot exist without equality. The equality of all people to have the same access to healthcare. The equality of all people to have the same access to education. The equality of all people to have the same access to opportunity. The Voice of Freedom, the Voice of Equality, is the Voice of the People.

The Voice of Fear is the voice of slavemasters, those who want you to put up and shut up and just do as you're told. It's time to throw off Fear.

"We want to play for you now a gospel song. A gospel song with a restless spirit."
It's time to pick back up the Voice of Freedom, the Voice of Equality, and sing it and sing it loud.