The first trailer for Christopher Nolan’s World War II drama Dunkirk was released on Friday and it looks incredibly intense.
Dunkirk stars Fionn Whitehead, Tom Hardy, Harry Styles (yes, THAT Harry Styles) and Mark Rylance. Nolan’s film tells the story of the Dunkirk evacuation, otherwise known as Operation Dynamo. As it went, Allied forces attempted to withdraw hundreds of thousands of soldiers surrounded by the Nazis in the French seaport of Dunkirk during the battle of France.
The trailer doesn’t give away much about the film but is packed with intense buildup. Multiple shots of Dunkirk are shown as a clock ticks down, faster and faster. Soldiers are shown on a packed boat, slowly minding their own business when they look up one-by-one and notice they are about to get attacked, collectively ducking for cover. It’s a small tease of what’s to be a grand epic.
While not much is revealed, there are a few reasons to be optimistic that Dunkirk will be great. First, Christopher Nolan is an ingenious director capable of crafting deep, intense stories on a massive scale. Nolan famously had production spend $5 million on a vintage aircraft, just to hook it up with IMAX cameras before destroying it. That’s commitment. Secondly, the film reunites Nolan with longtime collaborators such as composer Hans Zimmer and Interstellar cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema. That’s a winning team. Finally, the Dunkirk evacuation was massive, so the film should have no issue finding a compelling story.
Even with a small glimpse, Dunkirk looks to be a captivating, war-time thriller. It’s scheduled to be released July 21, 2017.
