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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. 史詩感與溫情并存，諾蘭的新戰(zhàn)爭片新銳大膽，震撼視覺。

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.

《敦刻爾克》是什么？答案比想象的要復(fù)雜?？死锼雇懈ァぶZ蘭執(zhí)導(dǎo)的新作當(dāng)然是一部戰(zhàn)爭片，然而片中卻鮮見敵人露面。這是一部投資1.5億美元的史詩巨構(gòu)，但又如俳句般凝練而空靈，三段幾乎沒有臺詞的簡短敘述串聯(lián)起106分鐘的時長。影片講述了榮譽、責(zé)任和戰(zhàn)爭的恐怖——主題經(jīng)典，同時卻又是諾蘭繼《記憶碎片》之后最離經(jīng)叛道的實驗之作。而且，正因為這些特征，本片堪稱杰作。

[2]該片剪取的歷史時刻，早已升華到軍事傳奇的高度：1940年5月，時為二戰(zhàn)前期，約40萬英軍和盟軍在法國北部敦刻爾克海灘被德軍從側(cè)翼包抄圍困。盡管海峽窄到可以隱約望到對岸的英格蘭，過淺的水深卻阻礙了戰(zhàn)艦靠近海灘。因此，一支約700艘民船組成的船隊——“敦刻爾克的小船”——從英格蘭拉姆斯蓋特出發(fā)馳援。

[3]在宣布諾蘭要把這次撤退搬上銀幕的時候，人們不難預(yù)期這將是《拯救大兵瑞恩》的倒映版，即從法國海岸撤退而非在此登陸。按照經(jīng)典戰(zhàn)爭片的形式，將會有敘事框架的創(chuàng)設(shè)和鋪陳、背景故事的展開、地理環(huán)境的闡釋、澎湃的情感，以及板塊化的時間。然而并沒有。諾蘭在本片中把這些套路抽離殆盡。不再有圍坐的將軍運籌帷幄，后方的家人牽腸掛肚，也不見溫斯頓·丘吉爾。軍人、海灘、大海、天空——僅此。

[4]除了幾架德國空軍的飛機，影片中甚至沒有任何納粹，唯有他們炮兵就在山那邊、他們的U型潛艇潛伏在波濤之下這類虛無縹緲的訊息。他們與其說是具體的敵人，毋寧說是抽象的生存威脅，而且有時《敦刻爾克》看起來不像戰(zhàn)爭片，而更像災(zāi)難片。除了空中交鋒，片中沒有“戰(zhàn)斗”，當(dāng)然也沒有“贏”。連死亡都干脆省略。

[5]諾蘭的三則故事發(fā)生在陸上、海上和空中，且在三個相互獨立但又交疊的時段，不過情節(jié)切換如外科手術(shù)般精確。年輕的英軍士兵（菲翁·懷特海德飾）一周之內(nèi)跋涉到敦刻爾克海灘，在此與大部隊的戰(zhàn)友一起等待前景莫測的救援。一個英國平民（馬克·萊蘭斯飾）和兩個十多歲的少年操縱他的木質(zhì)游船一日之內(nèi)橫跨海峽，見人就救。皇家空軍地獄火飛行員（湯姆·哈迪飾）一小時之內(nèi)在空中與德國空軍纏斗，努力掩護地面的同袍。這幾條敘事線索偶爾交匯，但多數(shù)時候僅互為交替視角，這是一出《羅生門》，內(nèi)里各個故事的目的在于豐富其他故事，而不是互相顛覆。

[6]筆者不愿就情節(jié)（或多重情節(jié)）過多著墨，部分原因在于用“情節(jié)”一詞來描述似乎有失恰當(dāng)。它們是故事的碎片，既溫情脈脈又實證冷峻。一些片段富于震撼的張力和深刻的人性。有些人活著，有些人死了。影片沒有太多的個人性格和動機刻畫，部分原因在于他們的動機并非特別個人化：當(dāng)時的動機就是活下去。至于是回鄉(xiāng)與妻子或愛人團聚，還是回到空蕩蕩的公寓，則已無關(guān)緊要。

[7]萊蘭斯從波濤中救獲的士兵（西利安·墨菲飾）被彈殼震暈，情況極其糟糕，但他仍通過其熟稔的精湛演技傳遞了人性的尊嚴。在深入大海被用作臨時碼頭的重型防波堤“鼴鼠”上，分別由肯尼思·布拉納夫和詹姆士·達西飾演的海軍和陸軍軍官體現(xiàn)的則是剛毅堅忍。還有，相對默默無聞的杰克·洛登、安紐林·巴納德以及哈里·斯泰爾斯（據(jù)說諾蘭在選角時并不知道他是“單向組合”成員）與懷特海德一道，成功還原出惶恐軍士們的青澀及其可替代的本質(zhì)。

[8]最后說一則內(nèi)幕笑話。哈迪飾演的飛行員的面部被眼鏡和飛行面罩遮蓋，這是他五年來（繼《瘋狂的麥克斯：狂暴之路》以及諾蘭自己的《黑暗騎士崛起》之后）第三次大面積蒙面出鏡。盡管如此，沒人懷疑他那大而有神的雙眸。

[9]但歸根到底，《敦刻爾克》屬于諾蘭和影片的攝影師霍伊特·凡霍伊特瑪，他們的雕琢使本片務(wù)必在大屏幕上觀賞方得其所。全片用大畫幅膠片（75%為IMAX）拍攝，在全美125個影院用70毫米放映機放映，非同凡響。與喬治·米勒兩年前在《狂暴之路》中的手法雷同，諾蘭盡可能摒棄計算機成像而轉(zhuǎn)向現(xiàn)場特效——他甚至耗資500萬美元制作了一架老式德軍戰(zhàn)機，僅僅為了讓它墜毀——效果高下立判。很少有人將空中飛行的美感（及其失敗的不適感）描繪得如此栩栩如生。

[10]敦刻爾克戰(zhàn)役永遠是戰(zhàn)爭故事的極致：一場絕境潰敗被重塑為標志性勝利，當(dāng)然這無可厚非。在諾蘭電影的末尾，一位回鄉(xiāng)的士兵面對祝賀，若有所思地說：“我們所做的只是活下來而已。”回答則是：“那就足夠了。”但實際意義遠遠不止這個。如果這些盟軍士兵未能獲救，戰(zhàn)爭的歷史將面目全非。致敬這段關(guān)于幸存的歷史，很難想象還有什么作品能超越諾蘭的這部影片：空靈，震撼，雄心爆棚。

《敦刻爾克》：諾蘭的重磅之作

文/克里斯托弗·奧爾譯/楊樹鋒

（譯者單位：其禮律師事務(wù)所上海辦公室）