MovieChat Forums > Dunkirk (2017) Discussion > Did anyone else find the second act real...

Did anyone else find the second act really confusing?

posted 7 years ago by PrimeMinisterX (8290)
23 replies | jump to latest

I felt like the opening and the ending were both very solid. About 10 minutes in, I was like, okay, fuck yeah, this is going to be great! And at the end, the film wraps itself up pretty well also.

But in the middle? I was pretty confused about exactly what was happening. It was almost as if Nolan had gotten infused with the spirit of Terrence Malick and decided to just try to tell a story through a montage of scenes and images, leaving it up to the viewer to figure out how all these puzzle pieces fit together.

Others may have an easier time than I did finding the narrative structure in the center of the film, so your mileage may vary, but personally I spent a lot of the time understanding only the broad strokes of what was going on--the Allied forces are getting attacked while trying to get off this beach--but confused on the details.

Anyone else feel the same way?

[–] beith1 (364) 7 years ago

no. i was able to follow along with the story from start to end. he just told the story from multiple viewpoints.

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8290) 7 years ago

Well he also messed with the chronology with no clear indication that he was GOING to mess with the chronology.

For instance, with the way the stranded soldier they pick up on the sinking ship suddenly appears again later on in that same ship before it has sunk.

[–] beith1 (364) 7 years ago

i was able to follow along. the one thing i did scratch my head at was why tom hardy had to land his plane where he did at the end.

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8290) 7 years ago

I think it didn't help things for me that many of the characters looked the same and weren't very well defined, especially the young guys on the ships that went down. Also, I had a hard time understanding the dialogue at times. Either the accents were too thick or it just sounded muffled (like sometimes when Tom Hardy would talk with his mask on).

Regarding Hardy landing at the end though, I'm pretty sure he was out of fuel. Remember there was that scene early on when he calculated his fuel. I think what happened there was that at one point he knew he was on the verge of not being able to get home and he decided to stay and keep fighting to protect his fellow soldiers.

[–] beith1 (364) 7 years ago

i agree with the young guys looking alike. i did get them mixed up once or twice. maybe one could have been blonde and one a ginger, lol. the accents did make it hard for me too in some scenes to understand what was being said, especially the pilots.

you are right about the fuel. i guess once you run out, you just land where you land.

i really enjoyed the movie. i'm ashamed to admit that i never heard about dunkirk until i saw the trailer for this movie.

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8290) 7 years ago

I wasn't familiar with Dunkirk either before this movie so I'd say don't feel too bad.

[–] LukewarmCereal (88) 7 years ago

He was out of petrol over Dunkirk. He then glided out to where the Germans were, and landed there to be captured.

Why not glide down to land where the British troops were?

Made literally no sense.

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8290) 7 years ago

I think the deal was that he wanted to turn back and make one more pass at the enemy planes and once he had done that he had no real choice but to land where he did.

[–] desepticon (165) 7 years ago

I thought it was pretty clear he was out of fuel. He switched to his reserve tank before engaging one of the bombers, and then he actually took out a Stukka when he had no fuel. You could tell because his engine stopped and ceased to make any sounds. I thought they made this pretty clear.

[–] Sentient Meat (1509) 7 years ago

I thought he did that because he didn't want to land on the soldiers... he also had trouble with his landing gear so it could have been partially that. I agree though, why didn't he just land in the water near his own troops like his friend did?

[–] desepticon (165) 7 years ago

Why ditch in the water, which is rather dangerous, when you have a nice flat beach to land on. Also, he had no fuel and didn't have the altitude to really turn around at that point. The best he could do was glide down as gently as he could.

[–] Sentient Meat (1509) 7 years ago

Because ended up ditching by the Germans and got captured

[–] desepticon (165) 7 years ago

By that point he was too low to turn. He had to glide as straight as possible to land relatively safely.

[–] vicky_lc2001 (1907) 7 years ago

I didn't have an issue following it either though I do have a few questions regarding certain scenes. But the way the chronology was handled, it's non linear way reminded me of Memento actually. And I quite liked that he did that actually.

[–] NotASpeckOfCereal (302) 7 years ago

"Well he also messed with the chronology with no clear indication that he was GOING to mess with the chronology. "

No clear indication? You mean besides at the start of the film when each of the 3 timelines were introduced came with a lingering caption that read "One Hour", "One Day" (or 24 hours, I forget), and "One Week" (or 7 days, I forget)?

[–] LukewarmCereal (88) 7 years ago

I realised what those captions meant later, but as they appeared, they were fairly unhelpful.

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8290) 7 years ago

Exactly. What the hell does "One Hour" or "One Week" mean?

How about being clear and saying, "One hour to evacuation" or whatever.

[–] Sentient Meat (1509) 7 years ago

I didn't like the way he handled the scene with the kids on the boat. I think he thought it might be more scary or powerful if an unknown force was sniping at them from long range... but there were no establishing shots to indicate the progress of the tide...they introduce the Dutch soldier... accuse him of being German... then just accept his story without checking his tags or ID...they introduce the French guy... and then the main soldiers recognize that he's no different from them just trying to survive... then completely discard those narratives because the boat is filling with water. I was confused if they stayed inside the boat because they thought the Germans were near... or because they were already too far from shore. By the fact no water was coming through the holes at first... you'd think they were at first on land then slowly moved with the tide as water came through... but all of this was vague and poorly done.

The rest of the film was pretty clear and well done, but I agree with the unnecessary Terrence Malick like touches... Atonement is a better film in terms of the drama and of course Private Ryan is better strictly in terms of an action film.
Some nice scenes... good acting by Rylance and Branagh... beautiful photography... but some of those incoherent passages take the film down a notch or two from true greatness.

[–] Sandoz (2021) 7 years ago

Of the three storylines, the one I found the hardest to follow was the "Beach" segments. I'm still not precisely sure how many principal soldiers were wandering about through this segment... Was it 2, or 3? More?

[–] Kalima (13) 7 years ago

The thing that got me his switching of time, in one scene it's night at the beach then all of sudden you're back with the planes during daylight. It didn't feel very cohesive, the continuity kept being broken. I connected the dots fine, piecing the scenes together, but it was confusing as hell switching between night and day.

[–] ZeroWolf (41) 7 years ago

I didn't find it confusing, but it did seem unnecessary to see the same ship get hit by the Heinkel and then capsize, I believe, four times.

[–] WadeLS71 (40) 7 years ago

I got the same Terence Malick vibe, but Nolan was not able to pull off the visual story telling of Malick.

[–] MovieManCin2 (26342) 7 years ago

I agree, it was very confusing. For example when those 10 or 12 guys got in that beached boat. Then when the tide started to some in someone started shooting at them, but WHO? They never did establish that. And why did they stay in the boat and try to plug dozens of holes?? That made absolutely no sense. They needed to get out.

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