Whilst still in shooting, they have released an ‘announcement’ Teaser trailer for Christopher Nolan‘s latest project Dunkirk. The WWII epic is based on a brutal battle in Dunkirk, France, where the allied soldiers, being surrounded by the German army were evacuated by the hundreds of thousands on boats. The cast includes newly appointed Academy Award winner Mark Rylance, frequent Nolan collaborator Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, and Harry Styles in his first venture into acting. Though, none of the main cast feature in the teaser, which only hints at what is to come and does little more than confirm that the project is happening.
Christopher Nolan is one of the most revered directors of the current time. Through his body of work he has established a distinct style that can only be described as ‘Nolan-esque’ – a very tense, heightened take on the action genre elevated by his films’ sophistication both in the intricate plots and the high quality of the story-telling elements. With the exception of The Prestige (2006), his films are set in the present or a slightly futuristic world, parallel to the one we live in. This is why it was hard to get my head around the announcement that his follow up to Interstellar (2014) would be a thriller set during WWII. Grounding his story in a moment of history that actually took place doesn’t seem to leave any room for the mind-bending magic realism that we have grown accustomed to in his work.
That being said, the ticking clock and heartbeat in the soundtrack of the teaser make you immediately recognise who is the master mind behind this project. After all, it is the style of filmmaking, rather than the subject, that makes a Nolan film a Nolan film and there is no doubt whatever he does with this story will be incredible and it will probably blow a lot of WWII movies out of the water and take their place as one of the most prominent films of the genre in the psyches of cinema-goers for a time to come. This isn’t based on the teaser, just on what we’ve come to expect from Christopher Nolan.
Dunkirk isn’t due in cinemas until July of 2017, and as it’s still shooting we will probably have to wait a while until a proper trailer is released. You can watch the ‘announcement’ teaser below.
