narrative

Das Ist Gut (Dunkirk review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Not every story told follows the same narrative path as what preceded it. I mention this because Christopher Nolan has been directing movies since 1989 but it wasn’t until 2008’s The Dark Knight that we began to expect a certain tone from his films.

 

Dunkirk (2017)

Cast: Fionn Whitehead, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Kenneth Branagh
Director: Christopher Nolan
released on blu-ray December 19, 2017
********* 9/10

IMDB: 8.1
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%, Audience Score 81%
The Guardian: *****/*****

Christopher Nolan is an English film director, screenwriter and producer extraordinaire. He also has dual citizenship in the United States. If you are unfamiliar with his work, he has also helmed the recent The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, Interstellar, Memento, Insomnia, The Prestige, and Following, his directorial feature length debut. There were three films he made before Following, but those were all short films.

An advocate for film preservation, Nolan’s films often explore themes of morality, the passage of time, and identity. He prefers to use practical effects where possible, incorporates wide angle shots to reduce the scale of his characters, and adjusts the narrative landscape through the use of gripping soundtracks (looking at you long-time friend Hans Zimmer) and by messing up the typical sequencing of scenes.

Dunkirk follows that tradition of Nolan’s films, but does so in such a way that the lead character becomes the evacuation itself, with Allied soldiers, Axis planes, and British civilians all helping to fill in for settings and props. I should be clear when I state that this is a war film, but the explosions, cries of pain, and bloodshed are not the focal points – it’s the magnitude of war and how it effects our personal decisions for right or for wrong.

Courtesy of Wikipedia…

In 1940, during the fall of France, hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers have retreated to Dunkirk. Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), a young British private, is the sole survivor of a German ambush. At the beach, he finds thousands of troops awaiting evacuation and meets Gibson (Aneurin Barnard), who is burying a body. After a German dive-bomber attack, they find a wounded man. They rush his stretcher onto a hospital ship hoping to get onboard and escape, but are denied passage themselves. The ship is sunk by dive-bombers; Tommy saves Alex (Harry Styles), another soldier. They leave at night on a destroyer, which is sunk by a torpedo from a U-boat. Gibson saves Tommy and Alex, and they are brought ashore by a rowing boat.

The Royal Navy requisitions civilian vessels that can get close to the beach. In Weymouth, Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance) and his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) set out on his boat Moonstone rather than let the navy take her. Impulsively, their teenage friend George (Barry Keoghan) joins them. At sea, they rescue a shell-shocked officer (Cillian Murphy) from a wrecked ship. When he realises that Dawson is sailing for Dunkirk, the officer demands that they turn back, and tries to wrest control of the boat; in the struggle, George falls and suffers a head injury that renders him blind.

Three Spitfires head towards France. After their leader is shot down, pilot Farrier (Tom Hardy) assumes command with a shattered fuel gauge. They save a minesweeper from a German bomber, but the other Spitfire is hit and ditches. Its pilot, Collins (Jack Lowden), is rescued by Moonstone.

Tommy, Alex and Gibson join a group of Scottish soldiers and hide inside a trawler until the tide rises. Her owner, a Dutch mariner, returns. German troops shoot at the boat for target practice; when the tide rises, water enters through the bullet holes. Alex, hoping to lighten the boat’s load, accuses Gibson, who has been silent, of being a spy and demands that he leave. Gibson reveals he is French; he had stolen the identity of the soldier he buried, hoping to evacuate with the British. Alex, Tommy and the Scottish soldiers abandon the fishing boat when it begins to sink. Gibson is entangled in a chain and drowns. Alex and Tommy swim towards a nearby destroyer, but it is sunk by a bomber. Moonstone manoeuvres to take on troops, including Alex and Tommy. Peter realises that George is dead; when asked by the shell-shocked officer, he lies that George will be fine. Farrier shoots down the bomber, which crashes and ignites the oil slick from the sinking destroyer. Peter reveals to Collins that his elder brother was a Hurricane pilot, killed early in the war.

Farrier reaches Dunkirk, his fuel exhausted. Gliding over the beach, he shoots down a dive-bomber to cheers from the troops below. He cranks his landing gear down and lands beyond the Allied perimeter. He sets fire to his plane and is taken prisoner by German soldiers.

At the beach, Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh) watches the last British soldiers leave. He confirms that 300,000 have been evacuated, ten times more than UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill had hoped for. He remains to oversee the evacuation of the French rearguard. Alex and Tommy cross the English Channel and board a train in Weymouth. Dawson is congratulated for having saved so many men. The shell-shocked officer sees George’s body being carried away. Peter visits the local newspaper with a photograph of George; a front-page article later commends George as a hero. Alex expects public scorn as the train approaches Woking, but they receive a hero’s welcome. Tommy reads out Churchill’s address to the nation from a newspaper.

This is nightmare fuel. Beaches filled with men with nowhere to go watch in terror as German aircraft decimate them from above – the analogy of the boot stomping ants is sickeningly accurate in this case. The movie showcases the blender full of emotions in such a thoughtful way, allowing us to give pause and see faces filled with anger, others with pride, despite not connecting with anyone long enough to root for them. It’s an odd thing, given that Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, and Kenneth Branagh are all excellent character actors – Nolan only gives us a taste into each man’s personality knowing full well that war dwarfs our self-importance.

Pros: The action moves up and down, like a wave crashing on a beach. The sparse storytelling and tone of failure barely concealed by dumb luck work damn strong to force a response. It’s technically brilliant.

Cons: A lack of an emotional core, might be difficult to swallow. Tom Hardy’s Farrier could have been given a slightly larger role – showing his end at the hands of Nazi soldiers even. A lot of unanswered questions.

Runtime: 1 hour 46 minutes

Points of Interest: Thirty or so Dunkirk veterans attended the Long premiere – they appreciated the accuracy of the story, but felt the soundtrack was louder then the actual bombardment. Nolan cast young and unknown actors based on accounts of how inexperienced the real soldiers of Dunkirk were.

As far as a military effort, the Battle of Dunkirk was an epic disaster on a global scale. But the evacuation of almost 300,000 soldiers and the moral victory of the British is considered by many historians as the lynchpin in the Allied story of fighting against tyranny. By giving the soldiers and citizens an equal footing, Winston Churchill was able to foster a spirit of resistance within this nation, and turn a tragedy into a triumph, which is echoed in the final moments of the film by Alex as he is welcomed home in Woking.

theories Summarized

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this film as a I watched it, if I am being completely honest. Mysticque and I watched it together, and she was not a fan of it by any means. I try not to let other opinions effect my own interpretation of a film, but rather to enhance it. In this case it was invaluable, because Dunkirk is a film of competing emotions, many personal narratives drowned out by a larger message. I think you should see this film, especially given that stories like Saving Private Ryan and Pearl Harbour exist. A film like Dunkirk will help to expand your worldview and introduce a greater perspective on World War II, a time that that provided such cognitive dissonance for humanity, theories and all.

Tim!

Origami That’s Fun And Easy (Kubo and the Two Strings review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Sometimes a movie does something new, using something old, and reminds you why you love the format so damn much. That’s what this weeks’ movie review is all about, duality, memories and recognizing the importance of story.

It’s kind of baffling that I would get so excited about a good story, but it really is integral in any art form.

 

 

 

Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)

Cast: Charlize Theron, Art Parkinson, Matthew McConaughey, Ralph Fiennes, Rooney Mara, George Takei
Director: Travis Knight
released on blu-ray November 22, 2016
********** 10/10

the-ice-fields

IMDB: 8.0
Rotten Tomatoes: 97%, Audience Score 87%
The Guardian: *****/*****

 

Travis Knight is an American animator, producer and known for his work as lead animator for Laika Entertainment. And now he is known for directing Kubo and the Two Strings, which is his directorial debut.

Since 2005, Knight has been essential to the stop motion animation of the Laika team, wearing several hats and contributing to both CGI and stop-motion animation for its productions. Namely feature length films such as Coraline, ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls. He also serves as a member of Laika’s board and was recently nominated for Best Animated Feature on his work for The Boxtrolls.

But what do I think, you ask? Well, this is an amazing film dear readers. Brilliantly animated, with excellent voice acting, and an original story.

Kubo (Art Parkinson) is a one-eyed boy who lives with his sick mother, Sariatu (Charlize Theron), in a cave atop a mountain. He tells stories to the local villagers by magically invigorating origami through his three string shamisen. His favourite story is about a warrior named Hanzo who goes on a quest to fight the Moon King. Kubo must head home before sunset each day or her Sisters (Rooney Mara) and his grandfather the Moon King (Ralph Fiennes) will come for his remaining eye.

One day, Kubo attempts to communicate with his father, the deceased Hanzo… Nothing happens and he becomes angry, staying out past sunset. Sariatu’s Sisters arrive and attack Kubo, but his mother defends him, and impassions him to find Hanzo’s armour. When Kubo awakens the next day he learns that his little wooden monkey charm has been given life by his mother’s magic. Monkey tells him that his mother is dead and that he needs to move to survive. One of Kubo’s origami has come to life in the form of a little Hanzo, and during the quest they find an amnesiac named Beetle (Matthew McConaughey), a cursed samurai apprentice of Hanzo’s that has taken the form of a beetle. He offers his services to Hanzo’s son.

The first leg of the quest has the three battling a giant skeleton for the sword unbreakable. Next, Kubo uses magic to create a boat of leaves and the expedition sails across Long Lake for the breastplate impenetrable. Beetle and Kubo dive in to retrieve the breastplate. One of the Sisters attacks and Monkey manages to defeat her, but is badly wounded in the process. Kubo realizes Monkey is his mother reincarnated.

Monkey reveals that originally she and her sisters were meant to kill Hanzo, but she fell in love with him, which incensed her family. Kubo dreams and is greeted by Raiden, a blind old man who shows him the location of the helmet invulnerable, the final piece of armor. They head to his father’s damaged fortress, but are ambushed by the remaining Sister, she reveals Beetle is Hanzo, whom the cursed. Beetle is killed, and Monkey sacrifices herself. Two strings of the shamisen are broken in the process Kubo learns his village’s bell is the helmet, breaking the last string and flying back home.

He takes the helmet, but Raiden appears, now the Moon King. He wants Kubo to become blind and immortal like him. Kubo refuses and fights the Moon King, but loses badly. Shedding the armor and re-stringing his shamisen, Kubo uses its magic to recruit the spirits of the deceased villagers, proving memories are more powerful. The spirits shield him engulf Raiden in their magic. The Moon King is defeated, becomes human, and has no memories of his past. The remaining villagers and Kubo create a positive new identity for him. Kubo then communes with his parents spirits and sets their lanterns afloat.

Pros: The themes of spirit, memories, and death are strong, delivered with great emotional care. The animation slowly pulls you into this story, and once you are there it’s impossible not to appreciate the depth of characterization and inspiring message.

Cons: If you like your narrative delivered to you in direct terms, quickly establishing roles and character arcs, this film will not serve it up to you on a silver platter.

Runtime:  1 hour 41 minutes

Points of Interest: The boat sequence took 19 months to shoot, and the entire film consists of at least 145.000 photographs turned into a stop-motion film. The two strings of the film’s title is a theme of duality featured throughout: Mother and father. Night and day. Life and death. Creativity and destruction.

It’s refreshing to see an animated family film that features a prominent and mystical quality to it. A film that prefers to be driven by narrative first and then demand for visual quality, and as a consequence achieve something rare in cinema. An engaging story that pretty much any age group could enjoy thoroughly, but you have to be prepared to listen to it.

Let’s consider something for a second. Have you ever seen origami used so effectively in an animation that is about stories within stories? Kubo is a storyteller that uses song, performance and paper to make stories. That he and his cast of characters are made of the same materials is a point not to be trivialized, these forms can be understand by any age group or culture for that matter. And it makes the use of magic seem that much more significant. I loved this movie, and I hope you take the time to go see it for yourself creative cuties. I’m out of theories for now, but rest assured, I’ll be back tomorrow with something about what’s coming.

Tim

Court of Cowls (Scott Snyder)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

I like comic books – Always have. Always will.

The surface reason is pretty straight forward. I really appreciate a good narrative, and because I’m fascinated by visuals, comic books can’t be beat when it comes to pulling off a spectacle of visuals and for providing that sense of satisfaction. Correction, I probably shouldn’t call it satisfying, instead I should call it gratification, because the nature of the comic book is a continuing story. Gratification is something we are thankful for, while satisfaction is a feeling of enough.

You see, dear readers, the comic book by its very nature never finishes, so you cannot experience the fullness of pleasure, you’re left wanting.

This is great for sales, when a book has a strong story and great visuals. Less so when the book isn’t picked up. After all, the comic book industry is perpetually dying.

The Batman Writer We Deserve

If you haven’t seen Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight yet, I’m sorry to hear that. It came out almosta decade ago and it’s probably one of the best comic book based movies of all time, if not the best… possibly sharing the limelight with Iron Man no.1 and the first The Avengers movie for my top picks.

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Anyways, there is this great scene at the end of the movie wherein the newly appointed Commissioner Gordon gives a speech at Harvey Dent’s funeral. He describes Batman as a dark knight, a watchful protector, what the city of Gotham deserves, but not what it needs. The city needs a white knight in shining armour, flawless and serving as a beacon of hope. The city doesn’t deserve a flawless hero, but Batman is willing to become the villain in order to help his community rise up out of the darkness. In fact, Batman is flawless in that he is a true hero, he loses his parents and the love of his life, but he continues forward as a warrior for justice. But Harvey Dent is very flawed, and when the chips are down, he reveals that he is capable and willing to go to The Joker’s level, becoming Two-Face.

Now, let’s talk about Scott Snyder.

Scott Snyder is known for his comic book writing skills, having worked with DC and Vertigo on various books – American Vampire, Detective Comics (part of The New 52 relaunch), Batman, and Swamp Thing.

A lot of people have said that Snyder’s work on Batman has been exemplary, and I would tend to agree. I recently read the hard cover volume of The Court of Owls, and was pleasantly surprised at how well he was able to combine new storytelling with flourishes of what came before.

batsignal_at_highmark_building

Scott Snyder is the Batman writer we deserve, because he spent five years working with artist Greg Capullo to give a new perspective to Batman, respectful of what preceded, but willing to explore. This is something that all comic fans really want to see, and it’s a difficult line to walk.

 

I think he was able to accomplish this by building upon key moments and seeing the story through to whatever direction it took. Kind of amazing when you stop to think about it. Even his twists and turns on The Joker is one to remember.

Disney and Stephen King VERSUS Detective Comics

Scott Snyder attributes a lot of his writing to an early exposure to horror writer giant Stephen King and later when he was able to work for Walt Disney World after he graduated from university.  He describes it as such 

All the things I ended up writing about, those things that are deeply frightening to me—fear of commitment and growing up, fear of losing loved ones, the wonder and terror of falling in love—all of it was constantly being played out all around me in this weird, cartoonish, magnified way at Disney.

Which tells me that he deserved to write for Batman, and we deserved to have him. Not to sound like a broken record, but yeah – a labour of LOVE is what it comes down to friends. And this is why Scott Snyder is this month’s featured author for my 5 L’s of Language post. His massive love for the subject material he writes about comes through no matter what. And this is something you too should take to heart.

No matter what the occasion or the reason, always be headed towards you purpose and be authentic in your feedback, if you can do this, you’ll be like Batman. But that’s just a theory.

Tim!

Slow Down Baby (The Lumineers, Cleopatra review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Folk music has a soothing nature to it, it feels like clean soap and a warm basin full of water, like a brown bottle of beer dropped on a hard wood floor, like a summer dress brushing against the wheat fields.

You know what they say right? Music can sooth even the savage beast, and this week’s band is making major efforts to bring you up to their level of newfound sincerity and thoughtfulness.

Let’s take a look-see.

 

 

 

The Lumineers – Cleopatra (White Album)
released April 8, 2016
******** 8/10

CLEOPATRA

The Lumineers are an American folk rock band. Wesley Schultz (lead vocals, guitar), Jeremiah Fraites (drums, percussion), Neyla Pekarek (vocals, cello), Stelth Ulvang (piano) and Ben Wahamaki (bass) make up the group.

The band initially formed between Fraites and Schultz after Josh Fraites (best friend to Wesley and brother of Jeremiah) died of a drug overdose in 2002. The two began playing together as a way to cope with their loss.

This is their second studio album, which was self-titled and released in 2012. And they have come a long way from both that album and their initial outings – When Fraites and Schultz first started to play together, they had a number of random names, and they did all kinds of songs, from covers and basic hard rock numbers, to acoustic jams, to electronic infused music.

As a fan of the band, who owns that first album, I can tell you that this is a welcome change of pace.

Schultz’ vocals are stronger, seasoned and somehow more supple. If I can use that word. Sleep On The Floor is a good opener, because it reminds you of their range and ability to get a room moving in a slow sway.

But it’s at the second and third tracks that you get excited. Ophelia is a fun and somewhat sad song, while Cleopatra changes the pace ever so slightly. It’s kind of invigorating to listen to and reminds me of their breakout single Ho Hey. That song let the world know that The Lumineers meant business.

Sure they are a fun folk act that you can enjoy drinking whiskey or beer, but that belies the epic scale of their range – they can sing intimately to an entire crowd and no one will get jealous.

Now this is where it gets interesting, the rest of the album shifts to more nuanced efforts with the percussion, ivories and vocals of Schultz. If you’re not careful you might not appreciate the album on a first or second go, and it doesn’t surprise me that some reviews are giving this sophomore LP a 6 or a 7, but I promise you’ll enjoy it more and more as you go.

Yes, it’s more tempered but exploration is what is going to give them future opportunities and ways provide input to the musical landscape. You’ll definitely notice the shift when it happens, but that doesn’t mean it always goes down smooth. Angela is quite solid and represents both the monotony of small-town life and some of the tracks that follow, because some of the other songs do bleed together.

Which is why it’s not perfect. They’re still figuring it out, but so what. Most of the album is good, and sometimes you want an album to slow down on you so you can turn of the lights and get some gentle sleep.

 

 

 

Delicate narratives wrapped in vocals coated with milk and honey are never a bad thing dear readers, and The Lumineers are just warming up and shining a spotlight on their subject matter. Do they know exactly what they want to say just yet? Well, no.

But you can count me among the ever-faithful who will be tuning their radio in and sitting on the rug with some oval-tine and a cookie or two.

But what do you hear when you listen to the Lumineer…s? Comment! Subscribe! Share! Join the conversation creative types, and I’ll see you tomorrow with something theatrical.

Tim!