Review: Dunkirk (2017)

* * * *
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Fionn Whitehead, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Kenneth Brannagh

I cannot imagine seeing Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk in IMAX. I'm sure it's an incredible viewing experience, I have no doubt that certain elements of the film would actually be enhanced by being seen in that format, but I don't think I'd be able to handle the intensity of it. I had to stress eat my way through the regular theatrical format as it is. That's how immersive an experience Dunkirk is; it leaves you feeling breathless and worn-out, but also exhilarated and, despite the deep wells of despair open just beneath the surface of many scenes, hopeful. The story of the evacuation of Dunkirk is one of disaster, destruction, and death, on the one hand, and the miracle of ordinary people stepping forward to do an extraordinary thing on the other. It's an epic tale told here in intimate, searing detail, minimalist in its scope but maximized in its power. Dunkirk is a triumph of filmmaking destined to join the ranks of the all-time great war movies as a standard bearer of the genre.

Review: Interstellar (2014)

* * 1/2
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain

Whatever else you might say about Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, you certainly can't accuse it of lacking in ambition. This is a film which operates on a grand scale, creating new cinematic vistas which, like Gravity last year, ought to be seen and experienced on the big screen. On a purely visual level, Interstellar is often spectacular. Narratively and thematically it is severely wanting and emotionally empty. The "emotional" part wouldn't necessarily be a problem - plenty of great science fiction films are best described as "cold" or "clinical," after all - but given that Interstellar's story all comes down to the power of love, that lack of emotional impact is a problem. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of talk about feelings throughout, but what does that amount to when the characters are so thin and so much of the dialogue is a re-write or two away from being ready for consumption? But, hey, at least it looks great.

Review: Insomnia (2002)

* * * 1/2
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Hilary Swank

Although I'm a definitely a fan of Christopher Nolan, his 2002 thriller Insomnia has somehow eluded me until now. Seeing it ten years after the fact (and seven years after Nolan began his ascent as one of our most dependable producers of high brow blockbusters), I found it to be a singularly entertaining and captivating piece of work. It's not quite on par with Memento, which I think remains his masterpiece, but it's a great psychological thriller.

Review: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

* * * 1/2
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I already feel bad for whomever is tasked with the inevitable reboot of the Batman franchise because even if they turn out a competent and perfectly fine film, it’s bound to suffer in comparison. What writer/director Christopher Nolan accomplished with his three Batman films so completely transcends genre limitations and expectations that it feels reductive to call the films “comic book movies” or action movies, and it’s difficult to imagine that a new take on the story can be anything but a disappointment. With The Dark Knight Rises Nolan brings his series to a close, and brings it full circle, leaving an indelible mark on the cinematic landscape.

Review: Inception (2010)

* * * *
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ken Watanabe

Thank God for Inception because, other than a couple of smaller movies in limited release, this has been a very uneventful summer for me, movie-wise. Fortunately Inception was worth waiting for, as it's a smart, slick movie that engages the mind as much as the eye.

The story takes place at an unspecified time in the future when technology allows for shared dreaming and shared dreaming allows thieves to break into a person's subconscious to steal information. One such thief is Dominic Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is attempting in the film's opening minutes to extract information from a man named Saito (Ken Watanabe). The job is unsuccessful but Saito is so impressed with Cobb's work that he offers him a new opportunity. Maurice Fisher (Pete Postlethwaite), a powerful tycoon, is on his death bed and his son, Robert (Cillian Murphy), is about the inherit his empire. Saito wants Cobb and his team to venture into Robert's unconscious and plant the idea of selling off the pieces of his father's business. Though his partner, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), insists that it can't be done, Cobb is persuaded to take the job after Saito informs him that he can pull some strings which would allow Cobb to return to the U.S., where he's currently a wanted man.

Cobb puts together a team which includes Arthur, Eames (Tom Hardy), a forger capable of assuming someone else's identity in dreams, and Ariadne (Ellen Page), the architect who will design the dreams. Since inception is more complicated than extraction, the process will involve dreams within dreams within dreams and since each dream level is more unstable than the last, the team also includes Yusuf (Dileep Rao), a chemist who can make a compound that will allow them to submerge themselves deep enough to enter the lower levels. The team goes under but almost immediately things begin to go awry. For one thing, Fischer has been trained to fight attempts at extraction and his subconscious fights back fiercely against the invaders. For another, Cobb is dragging along a lot of baggage in his own subconscious that threatens to derail the entire operation.

Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Inception is a labyrinth of ideas, the density of which makes this a particularly ambitious film. Using Ariadne - who is new to the process of shared dreaming - as a surrogate for the audience, Nolan methodically sets up the rules of the unconscious state in the film's first half and then plunges us into action in the second half as level upon level upon level of unconsciousness first open out of each other and then collapse in. There is the threat that the characters will go too deep, that they'll submerge themselves so far that they'll be trapped in the unconscious indefinitely or that they'll no longer be able to tell reality from the dream state. Both risks are associated with Cobb who has essentially been to the other side and come back, though the things he left behind constantly threaten to pull him back. The final scene is ambiguous and already scores of theories have been put forth as possible explanations; this is a film that is obviously inspiring a lot of discussion and thought and I think that it's worthy of all of that effort.

The film has been described as "cold" by some critics and while I agree that it's cold, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Stanley Kubrick's films are cold and his coldest - 2001: A Space Odyssey which Nolan references here - is widely considered one of the highest achievements in film history. Besides which, I think coldness is entirely appropriate given the subject. If our unconscious is home to our baser instincts and our consciousness is tempered by our humanity, doesn't it make sense that it would get colder the deep you go? Just a thought.

Other criticisms of the film are, I think, more legitimate. There is a heavy handedness in terms of the naming of characters (aside from Ariadne there's also Mal, French for "bad" and the name of Cobb's destructive projection) and aside from Cobb, none of the characters is really fleshed out (though even that isn't necessarily a criticism, depending on your theory about the film). Still, Inception is an engrossing and often challenging film that makes up for whatever weaknesses it might have through the sheer force of its many strengths. I think it's safe to say that with this film and the rebooted Batman franchise under his belt, Nolan has a blank check to do whatever crazy shit he wants for the next ten years at least.

Review: The Dark Knight (2008)

* * * *
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart

Is The Dark Knight the best comic book movie ever made? It’s hard to say, so thoroughly does the follow-up to Batman Begins transcend the boundaries of its genre and become something else entirely. It’s far too cerebral to be labelled simply “a comic book movie” or an “action movie;” it’s a morality play in which the villain is less a means of causing chaos and destruction than he is a way of challenging the hero on moral and intellectual grounds.

The story picks up more or less where Begins left off: Gotham is still under siege by the mafia underworld, but is in the process of being cleaned up by people like Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldman), D.A. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and A.D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Batman (Christian Bale) is there, too, of course but is a divisive figure within the city as some people seem him as a saviour, others as a dangerous vigilante who ought to be stopped. The mob is on the verge of being shut down but then the Joker (Heath Ledger) enters the picture to throw a wrench into the plan. Gotham is soon plunged into terror and a series of choices are made which cause Bruce Wayne/Batman, as well as Dent and Gordon, to question the moral codes by which they live and conduct their business.

More than anything, the Joker functions as a mirror for Batman. Both are “freaks,” as the Joker happily points out, both scarred by events in their past (the Joker literally, Batman metaphorically), one acting out his trauma by attempting to bring order to the city, the other by attempting to dismantle it completely. The mob is willing to work with the Joker only for as long as they need him, and the authorities are willing to condone Batman’s actions only for as long as they have to – once the city is cleaned up a bit, he’ll go back to the top of the most wanted list. Batman and the Joker are two sides of the same coin (or, for the morbid amongst us, the two sides of Harvey Two-Face). Dent and Gordon function as mirrors of each other as well, with Dent playing the role of idealist driven off the rails and into performing the very actions he’s meant to stand against, and Gordon playing the role of realist (“I work with what I’ve got,” he says, explaining why cops who have a history of being on the take are still on the force) who is able to maintain his place on the moral high ground through his ability to see the various shades of grey which reside in between black and white.

A lot has already been written about the performance by Ledger, so I’ll simply say that it’s everything you’ve already heard, and focus instead on the film’s other two great performances: those of Eckhart and Oldman. Eckhart is wonderful, perfectly managing Dent’s transformation from hero to villain and becoming the film’s most compelling character. There’s something almost operatic about the arc of this character, who goes from being as good as Batman to as disfigured and twisted as the Joker. As for Oldman, he provides a solid anchor for the film as the character with the least ambiguous moral authority. It's a quiet role but Oldman does more with it than you might expect.

I really only have one criticism of the film, and it’s the same criticism I had of Begins, which is the length. You could easily cut twenty minutes out of this film while still maintaining its power. That begin said, however, the film is powerful; I was more moved by it than I had been expecting. The Dark Knight is definitely more than just your average summer movie fare.