Dunkirk first look: Christopher Nolan's war drama captures a soldier's dilemma within a frame

Filmmaker Christopher Nolan has released the poster of his next, the much-awaited period war drama Dunkirk, based on Operation Dynamo, the mega evacuation operation undertaken by the Allied powers from the harbour and beaches of Dunkirk, France after the German troops had surrounded them back in 1940 during World War II. [caption id=“attachment_3154636” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The poster of Dunkirk[/caption] “We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations,” then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had said to the House of Commons later that year while terming the evacuation as the ‘Miracle of Dunkirk’ in his famous speech called We shall fight on the beaches. Going by the poster, the scenic beaches and harbour of Dunkirk have turned into battlegrounds as evident by the warships, aircraft and ruins that dominate the landscape. The flames amidst the waves is symbolic of the middle ground that Nolan is expected to explore in the film. There are elements in the poster that reflect the thin line between valour and wisdom. While greatness lies in holding the battlefield, the wise are known to save the fight for another day. The lone figure standing on the shore gives out the feeling of a sole warrior ready to fight against the army all by himself. However, his posture and body language hint that he may be planning the great escape. His gun rests in his bag and he allows his brodie helmet to hang on his fingers. His fist is not clinched in resolve. Rather, it appears as conflicted as the soldier himself. If one observes the land closely, one can see a host of army helmets just strewn across the shore. They may belong to the army men who managed to escape or those who lost their lives while trying to do so. Also, the poster has been set at the time of either the dawn or the dusk, which is the brief time-period between when the soldiers wage war and when they return to their base camps. Nolan’s genius overflows the poster and the tagline, ‘The event that shaped our world’, gives the film a rather larger-than-life touch, on the lines of his past blockbusters Inception and Interstellar. Dunkirk is slated to release on 21 July, 2017.