War title sequence

DUNKIRK

When looking into the genre of war I decided to pick the movie 'Dunkirk'. This movie is a very popular war film based on true events directed by Christopher Nolan in 2017 (Warner Bros). The first thing I noticed straight away was the sound and editing. The opening scene begins with little sound so is calm and peaceful. Something very unexpected and juxtaposes the war genre. The only thing that is heard is the falling of paper (pleonastic diegetic sound) which has the words "you are surrounded". This places a massive emphasis on the paper, and the message behind it. When you pair this with the editing and the shot duration. The long shot duration exposures of the soldiers allow us as an audience to fully see the misery they are in. Automatically we feel a sense of sympathy for them. Again the expectations of a war film is quick, loud and a true sense of war. But what this opening scene has successfully done is show a different element of war which is sometimes not what is expected of the war genre. The use of a handheld camera shot when they are under attack was extremely effective as it created a sense of realism as if the audience are there in person. It creates a personal connection with the audience. The multiple use of establishing shots creates an emphasis n the abandoned location.

This scene is located in Dunkirk - a coastal city in Northern France, which in world war 2 was taken over and the British and French were trapped there by the Germans. Due to this movie being based on a true story, it brings an audience who want to see a quality film that presents what happened on this tragic event. It began slow and steady and then suddenly they were under attack. In general this can communicate the idea of war and what it was like, the idea that war is constantly changing and it is unexpected.With the use of cuts and quick transitions it creates an awareness of war and communicates how chaotic it was when this was taking place. Therefore it successfully demonstrated the genre of war, and gave an insight to what it was like.

Looking at the narrative of the opening scene, as mentioned before the beginning of the opening scene starts out with 6-7 soldiers walking along the streets of Dunkirk, where it is silent and none of them are speaking. I personally believe that this was an active choice on the directors behalf to show the effect that war has and how little energy these men have. It then goes into a dramatic scene of shooting and chasing and only one of the few soldiers survives. The one that survives ends up just walking away on to the beach looking completely unaffected by what has just happened. this can connote to the audience that this isn't the first time something like this has occurred and to him this is just a normality of day to day life now. We as audience feel a sense of guilt to this, as he probably had no choice but to be involved within the war. A possible future narrative to this could be the whole layout of the war, what happens, etc the ending of who ins. From this entry we get the impression that this is only the beginning and its about to get a lot worse. From the use of non diegetic instrumental of the violin playing in the background of this opening it communicates a sense of seriousness which fits well with the narrative and idea behind the scene (parallel sound). And lastly looking at the nature and relationships of characters, they all present that they have had enough. Considering this is only the beginning of the movie it makes us feel a great deal of sympathy due to the fact that this is only the beginning and they look emotionally and mentally drained.