#image limit abruptly becoming our greatest enemy | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

theholycovenantrpg · 4 years ago

Photo

CONGRATULATIONS, ALYX! YOU’VE BEEN ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF ARAEL.

Admin Rosey: Oh god, I think Arael was one of the characters that caught me by surprise. But the absolutely mastery of this application, did not at all surprise me because only Arael could - and should - be so effortlessly captured within the span of a single application. Tragedy, as you said Alyx, is woven into Arael’s bones and the fact that they recognize it and are so unbroken by it in their countenance says absolutely everything to me. The plots that you have lined up only feed into that tragedy more and I, for one, am absolutely here for it. I think that Arael is ripe for evolving and I completely trust this beautiful starlit character in your capable and loving hands. Please create and send in your account, review the information on our CHECKLIST, and follow everyone on the FOLLOW LIST. Welcome to the Holy Land!

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Alyx

Age | Taylor Swift vc: Idk about you, but I’m feeling 22!

Personal Pronouns | She/Her.

Activity Level | hopefully pretty active? I have work and classes but I’m taking less hours and my internship is done so I’m hoping I have more time to be on the dash.

Timezone | CST.

Triggers | REMOVED

How did you find the group? | I saw plenty of ads for it on my personal.

IN CHARACTER

Character |

Arael: “Lion of God”; She couldn’t remember her original name. Her memories of the cold abyss of the galaxy came to her in bits and pieces that she latched onto as one would latch onto an extended hand. She could remember that feeling of peace within her falling star. She could remember that acceptance as her annihilation came nearer. She could remember the rage and melancholy that took over her being as she opened her eyes and examined the wings that protruded from her back and the knowledge that her destiny was ripped away from her. The name Arael was a reminder of that original loss. She was never supposed to be a lion of god. She was never supposed to be an angel stuck on Earth. God had claimed her for himself. He claimed her to be a lion, and all she could do was set her icy gaze on her surroundings and roar until her voice grew hoarse and the burning in her chest faded away.

What drew you to this character? |

To be honest, I lurked on the admins’ blogs as the RP was originally being promoted. I tend to search for characters I like by quotes and images posted to their tag, and there was one quote on Arael’s tag that caught my attention. I don’t remember what exactly it said, but I knew it meant Arael was a character I needed to keep my eye on.

I love characters with tragedy built into their bones. There’s something so compelling about a character going through hardships and how they react to those hardships. Arael’s power alone showed me that she was a tragic character. To be able to hold everyone’s hope in your hand aside from your own? It seemed like a twisted gift from fate. As I read more, I realized that she was a creature of tragedy. She was pulled from the night sky against her own will. She was made into god’s image without her consent, and forced to endure the knowledge that she had lost her home and her destiny. She stared at the night sky, but she was never truly able to go back to her original home.

I like playing around with grief and how it impacts a character. I like seeing if they drown in their feelings, or if they rise above the grief and move forward with their lives. I think Arael is drowning in her grief. She’s stuck in this tunnel of rage and revenge that will consume her if she’s not careful. She’s blinded by this need, and I find that incredibly interesting to explore. Will she burn out? Will she start a war between the three parties? We’ll have to see.

Her story also kind of reminded me of Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not in a direct way, but there was a storyline where Buffy died and her friends brought her back from heaven and Buffy talked about being in peace before they brought her back. Arael being torn from her fate and made into an angel reminds me of that. The melancholy and grief they both felt from being ripped away from their rightful place. The way everyone notices that mourning. It gave me parallels.

What future plots do you have in mind for the character? |

“Why are you full of anger? Because you are full of grief.”

→ She was happy. For so long, Arael didn’t know what that feeling entailed. She had looked upon her existence as a punishment. She stared at the realm of heaven and only saw a jail cell. Her body was crafted by god, yet all she felt was unfamiliar in her own skin. Uriel had changed that. She had brought a smile to the otherwise stoic angel’s face. She was warmth wrapping itself around Arael’s cold heart. She was that flicker of hope that Arael felt in other people. She was hers, and someone had ripped that away from her. As she stared into her lover’s empty gaze, all she could think about was doing the same to whoever had killed her. She will rip the world apart if that’s what it took to satisfy the grieving of her heart. The only question will be: who will be spared in the end?

A big part of Arael is her dealing with that loss of her lover and that need for vengeance. I definitely want to explore her seeking out the answers to the murder. I want to see her dragging suspects to be interrogated in the hope that one day the right person will tell her what she wants to know. I want her to endanger innocent lives in her quest for justice. I want her to be so consumed with rage and grief that either herself or others get harmed in the process. She is a star on a collision path, and I want her to burn and burn out during this journey. Most of all, I want her to find the person who did it. I want her to find them, and I want her to kill them. It's the only way for her to be satisfied. It’s the only way for her to put her grief behind her and search for that glimpse of hope again

“You turn the pain into power.”

→ To some, her powers seemed like a blessing. To be able to hold onto someone’s greatest hope was to understand what truly made someone feel at ease. It was the way their eyes sparkled whenever their favorite person walked in a room. It was the passion that would surge through an individual during that last battle of a war. It was a glimpse behind the mask that people often wore, and Arael held all that at her fingertips. To her, this power was another way fate mocked her. She could feel what people’s greatest hopes were. She could fill them up with so much hope that they would be blinded by that desire. She could do so much for other people, but it would never be done for her. She couldn’t fill herself up with that hope. She couldn’t understand that blinding urge that she gave out. What does one do with a gift that serves to remind someone of the very thing they’re lacking?

I want to explore the depths of her power. I think that there’s more to be discovered with her abilities, and I want her to discover exactly what she can do with her gift of hope. I want her to see if her power could be used in the opposite direction. Could she drain someone of their hope? Could she blind someone with utter hopelessness to the point that they see nothing but their dreams slipping from their grasp? I think it would be a dangerous discovery if it were possible. I would also like to see a situation where her gift is irreversible— whether it be gifting hope or taking it away. Perhaps anger clouds her abilities and she over exerts her gift. Perhaps she’s trying to find an ounce of her own hope by filling someone up with so much hope that they become a shell of their former self. I want to push her powers to its limits, and I want Arael to see what sort of consequences are dealt from that discovery.

“You allow your anger to blind you.”

→ Arael’s been in a fragile state since the death of Uriel. To feel the small hint of hope get ripped out of her hands by an unknown assailant left her in a state of brokenness. She’s blinded by this ideal that she’ll be satisfied with vengeance. She has it built up in her mind that the death of this assailant will bring her the peace that she almost had with Uriel—- the same peace that was ripped away from her by god. What do others feel about this mentality? Do they find it foolish? Do they understand her mentality? Or perhaps they see an opportunity hidden behind those aching eyes?

I want to explore the concept of manipulation with Arael. I’m usually not fond of manipulation plots, but I feel like Arael’s in such a vulnerable state right now that it might be possible. I want someone to see that anger and despair. I want someone to see this utterly terrifying, broken angel and use it to their advantage. She’s the perfect weapon if used correctly. Her tunnel vision for revenge could easily be directed towards someone’s enemy if they whispered the right words to her. She could start a war if the correct side twisted her enough. I want to see her revenge used for someone’s personal plans. Maybe she kills an innocent person because she was led to believe they were present during her lovers death. Maybe she drags an innocent victim to Abaddon because she was led to believe they had valuable information. I want to see that manipulation, and I want to see the fallout of it.

“You reach for a soul that forever escapes your grasp.”

→ Arael loved Uriel, or at least it was the closest she ever got to love. The angel had gifted her a slice of hope that she had lacked since her creation, and Arael has been seeking a semblance of that hope since her departure. She feels lost, like she was back to her first years as a star-turned-angel, and she hates that feeling. She hates the emptiness that fills her heart as she watches the mortals her companion once adored. She hates the way she feels so distant from the other angels. Most of all, she hates that their love story ended so abruptly. She misses her with every fiber of her being. One often wonders what they would have their final words be to a loved one, but what if she could have that do over? What if she could catch a glimpse of her again?

I want her to approach Ryuk about contacting her dead lover’s soul. I think there’s a variety of reasons why she would want to talk to Uriel again. I think the most basic one would be that she wants to see her again—- even if it’s only through Ryuk’s words. This was the one person that broke her out of her shell and showed her that the world was worth more than mourning. The most plot related reason would be that she can ask her what her last memory was. Arael has exhausted her options when It comes to possible suspects, so perhaps Uriel could remember who was around during her death or who even caused her to perish. I also like the thought of Uriel advising her against this revenge quest, and Arael refusing to listen. She doesn’t realize that this isn’t what her lover would’ve wanted. She doesn’t realize that she’s doing more harm than good. It’s overall a more personal plot, but it’s good development for her and helps lead to either her collapse or her breakdown at realizing what she’s becoming.

“Anger was better than tears.”

→ Mortals were the envy of God’s creations. Angels were tasked with protecting them like a dragon protects its treasures. They razed cities, enacted miracles, all for the species that found favor in God’s eyes. Arael was never a mortal. She never understood the significance of their kind. She had no attachments to the beings aside from those tasks formerly given to her. She didn’t care for them like Caphriel did. She didn’t despise them as others might. Her feelings towards them might be classified as indifference. However, the stance changed after the death of Uriel. Eyes that might have had a glimpse of care for the beings shifted into anger at the thought of one of them murdering her beloved. Eyes that casually looked over the beings stuck to watching them with careful eyes. One human in particular has gotten caught within her storm. The question is: will she shatter the tentative peace that held the world together? Perhaps a bigger question is: will she have any regrets if she does?

Personally, I find the thought of Arael killing Bastien quite sexy. This would be completely up to the Bastien player, but even if it didn’t go that far, I still love the connection. I like the thought of Arael breaking that peace between the three factions. She sees Bastien as this arrogant fool, and she’s bothered by his position of power. How does her Uriel, gentle and kind, die while men like him thrive? It frustrates her. I’d like to see her knock him from his place at the table. Whether this be done through violence or jeopardising his spot amongst the ten would be up to the Bastien player and what they feel comfortable with, but I can work with either one. Arael’s desperate for some sort of vengeance. I think the more she struggles to find the one who killed Uriel, the one she’ll lean into these desires to destroy someone else, and Bastien is the unfortunate victim of her wrathful gaze.

“You’re a being of isolation.”

→ She is the only one of her kind. No one else knows what it’s like to live amongst the stars. No one else knows what it’s like to be plucked from the night sky and recreated in someone else’s image. No one knows the loneliness that comes with such a fate. The other angels are her brethren, her allies, but they don’t relate to her on that level. She’s a solitary creature, a lone star stuck wandering the earth, and it’s a painful existence. Will she ever figure out that some stars lay in clusters? Will she ever realize that she has the opportunity to shed that loneliness? It’s hard to say. It’s hard to pull herself out of the isolation that she chose from the start.

I want to explore her dynamic with the other angels. I think Arael struggles with connecting to them due to her origins. She doesn’t have that connection of being formed from the Earth or reborn as an angel. She’s different from the others, and that caused her to separate herself. I want to see how they take her quest of revenge. Surely some of them were close with Uriel, maybe even close with Arael, so perhaps they would support the mission. On the other hand, I’d love to see that disapproval. I want to see them trying to temper her anger only to be met with an icy glare. I’d love to see someone try to talk her down from her grief. She’s blinded by this mentality of an eye for an eye, but she doesn’t realize how that affects her fellow angels. I want them to show her how it affects them. Let them get caught in the crossfires of her vengeance. Let them struggle to pull her away from the brink. I think the angels quietly realizing that this fallen angel, this hollowed soul, might do some real damage would be delicious to watch.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Absolutely!

IN DEPTH

Driving Character Motivation |

They say the story of Arael is a tragic one. She was a burning star plucked from the sky and formed into god's image. She was placed among the angels, meant to stand holy and divine alongside her new brethren, yet she found herself standing alone. This angels story isn’t built on blessings. Her story isn’t a fairytale told to the young mortals in an attempt to sooth them to sleep. No, her tale is built on loss, and that’s what motivates her throughout her journey.

Her original loss is the loss of her original destiny. She was stripped of her purpose, ripped away from her original form and forced into a foreign body. She stared at her reflection and a stranger peered back at her. She examined her wings and only saw the fragments of her former self embedded within her feathers. She destroyed cities on God’s behalf, and yet all she could feel was a hollowness in her chest. Loss was her mentality within this point. That acknowledgment of what she’s become and how to endure that was her guiding factor in her initial years of life as an immortal being.

The next stage of loss was the loss of her hopelessness. Uriel had dragged her away from that hole she tucked herself in. The fellow angel opened her eyes to the possibilities of life, and for the first time, Arael’s world wasn’t a bleak landscape. She had color in her vision. She had a slight light in her eyes. Her smile wasn’t forced. She was learning what it was like to look at life as an adventure rather than a chain wrapped around her ankle. This stage of loss was a good thing. It was a stage of growth for the distant angel. She lost that depression that overcame her during her early years. She lost that emptiness that had wrapped itself around her like a blanket.

This latest stage of loss is the cruelest of them all. This burning star, this cold-eyed angel was finally learning the most human of experiences: death. She felt that small sliver of hope rip away from her as she held Uriel’s prone form in her arms. Her body shook with anger as she realized she was once again alone. Her motivation stems from the impact of that loss and the grief that nestled inside her heart. She’s driven to revenge. Her eyes are blinded by the need to punish the person that ripped that hope from her. A part of her knows this is a dangerous path. She knows what happens to stars that burn too brightly. Yet, the loss keeps her locked in its grasp. If she is to burn out, if she is to be destroyed, let it be with the knowledge that she has conquered the loss that has been trailing after her for years.

In-Character Para Sample |

“I brought another one.”

The history behind her statement was not lost on her. Each week she’d latch onto a lead. Each week she’d drag them into the heart of the black cells. Each week she’d watch Abaddon pull out any sort of answers they might have buried in their chest. Each week she’d feel the bitterness of disappointment settle on her tongue as she realized she reached another dead end. It ended the same every time. It couldn’t end the same way this time.

Her eyes traced over the features of her latest endeavor. His porcelain skin and almost white hair reminded her of Uriel, but the resemblance wouldn’t help him out of his fate. She had plucked him out of the crowd in hopes that he had any recollection of that fateful night. With each individual, She wanted a direction. She felt herself grasping at ghosts as the figures from her memory dwindled, and this feeling of loss was becoming all too familiar.

She released her hold on the boy and watched him try to scramble his way out of the cells. Mortals always seemed to have that reaction. Their fight or flight kicked in, trying to make sense of the location they were forced into, before finally realizing the fight was for nothing. They will leave once she gets the answers she’s seeking.

And yet, the boy wasn’t providing those answers. She watched him endure the torture despite the pain it brought him. She watched him fighting back tears, denying pain until it couldn’t be denied anymore, and yet still the answers remained behind clenched teeth.

“Again.”

Her voice was strong as she stared at the bleeding, frightened human before her. She refused to accept that she had reached another dead end. She clung to her quest with sharp claws, and she refused to release her grip for even a second. She was a vengeful angel, a flame with no mercy in sight, and all would endure the burning until she felt satisfied.

Her eyes flicked upwards to meet Abaddon’s, but she didn’t turn away. She didn’t care if the demon saw the hurt in her eyes or the flash of desperation that would spill out every time a mortal came to her with no answers. Maybe the demon had the same look when they got tossed out of god’s favor. Arael didn’t ask. Their relationship wasn’t built on sharing stories or reminiscing over almost forgotten memories. Their relationship was a mutual understanding--- a knife and the being that wields the instrument.

“Do it again until I say otherwise.” Do it again until I can hold any sort of answers in my hand. Do it again until the ache in my chest disappears for a second.

Arael watched the mortal flinch at Abaddon’s nod with cold, unfazed eyes. The scream that erupted from the boy’s mouth would make others grieve, but it only reminded her of the hollowness inside of her. She felt nothing as she watched the pain on his face. She felt only her own rage trying to crawl out of her chest. Perhaps this is what it meant to be a star. Perhaps this was her destiny all along---- to burn from the inside out until nothing but a hollow shell remained.

And perhaps she’ll succumb to her destiny, but only after the grieving in her heart is satisfied. She’ll burn up, but she’ll bring the person responsible for her demise with her.

Extras |

Inspo tag: https://elidclochan.tumblr.com/tagged/insp%3A-arael

Pinterest board: https://www.pinterest.com/aesthctics/insp-arael/

#accepted #accepted: arael

1 note · View note

graftonway · 7 years ago

Photo

we shall fight

It’s been hours since the movie ended and I’ve taken the train home and listened to music and washed up and eaten grapes and scrolled through tumblr and still all I hear is this:

tickticktickticktickticktickticktick

You hear it throughout the film. It stays with you, seeping into your brain until you’re conditioned to it, until everything ticks and continues to, until you’re hyper-aware of rhythm and even phone notifications blinking, your typing, remind you of it. A friend described it perfectly as taking a long breath and not being able to breathe while holding it. The feeling that’s dropped to the bottom of my stomach hasn’t left yet; I’m still waiting for something to happen. I don’t even know what, but it’s stifling, tense, overwhelming. And that is all of Dunkirk in a nutshell.

This isn’t, strictly speaking, a war movie. Frankly I’m not even sure it’s a movie. It seems to be - or at least pretend towards being - everything: horror, thriller, documentary, symphony, cinematography, emotion, art. Much like the way it spans all three branches of the armed forces (land, sea, air), it tries to be everything at once. Perhaps in the hands of a lesser director this would have ended a disaster, but - and forgive me if I’m being crass with this comparison - Nolan, like Dynamo, plucks salvation from what could have been absolute catastrophe.

The first thing that you take away from Dunkirk is the sheer scale. Of course, as a history student, I’ve seen the photos of the beaches before, long unyielding lines that stretch as far as there is beach. Nolan does it slightly differently. Instead of one snaking, scattered queue there are multiple short ones, cinematic as anything and yet still overwhelming in number. It makes for a great introduction to the film, sets the stage for what’s to come. The aesthetic beauty that war sometimes begets versus the horrific reality it encompasses. The constant push and pull between the patience of the body of waiting men, never heard once to complain, and lack of time that’s played out again and again. Tiny, moving human parts and the weight of the unmentioned German war machine.

Nolan’s movies are always clever, though here the cleverness isn’t as immediately obvious as something like Inception. It’s a layer that you peel back and revel in as you watch. It’s something that builds up, in all its scattered parts and broken pieces, pieces that you collect and store until they come together and make sense. Take the premise of time here, for instance. Words on screen that are always meant to provide context do the opposite here: ‘the mole / one week’, ‘the sea / one day’, ‘the air / one hour’ make no sense to the viewer as they settle in. But all it takes is for one shot - Cillian Murphy’s face in the dark on a boat, straight after his appearance in the bright sunshine on a different vessel - to realise what it means: the action is all taking place in a different time scale. And that moment hits you like a punch in the gut, even though it’s the most simple of revelations. A perfectly positioned callback. Without even knowing why you begin to watch the film differently, all because of the buildup that explodes with one miniscule yet incredibly powerful detail.

It’s this same kind of buildup that squeezes itself into the music. The movie lurches between sound from the get go - the quiet of walking down the street to the startling pops of gunfire, the brief moment before the torpedo hits to the jarring explosion. War sets in here without a single line of expository dialogue, the way it can weigh down other films (the “war is hell, boys” trope that even Hacksaw Ridge was guilty of). Instead all we get is the constant, jarring soundtrack, so loud and in your face that you are drawn into all of the violence and spectacular chaos (something that the multiple timelines also lend themselves to). This builds and builds until it ends, abruptly, twice: firstly, when the Little Ships come into view, and secondly, on the train that Tommy and Alex crumple into. The suddenness of the way it ends is as jarring as any explosion or loud dramatic orchestral note, all the more sharp for its absence. We get sweeping, nostalgic strings over the view of the flotilla, and pure silence (combined with the same sweeping music later) when Tommy falls into the seat.

Which is why so much weight comes to rest upon just these two scenes - the ships and the ending - and why I want to talk about those in particular. It will come as no surprise that they’re the two I cried at; as a kid I read about the Dunkirk spirit and the Churchill speech, and they both have special meaning for me. Add to that me just being a complete and utter sap for nostalgia, sentiment, painfully obvious emotional manipulation.

There’s enough emotional impact in the story of the Little Ships themselves that any film could pull it off with suitable heroic payoff, but it’s just done so very well here. The ticking of the pressure cooker and the fear of death instantly vanishes, replaced by the heartwarming, exceedingly British orchestra. For there is some measure of nationalism (I hesitate to say propaganda, but) with this, as with all war movies; it’s an unavoidable trope, yet one handled so well here. It’s muted - the only flag is the one in the small corner of a larger blue flag, blurred in the background of Mr. Dawson’s boat. Bolton (a place name in and of itself) calls out to some of them, asking where they’re from. And in the end the boats go by an approximation of Dover. But the real focus is on the humanity of the people who came to save the troops. No dialogues or stars in these scenes: just civilians, just ‘home’. Some reviews were critical about the lack of character names and the like, but I think that was done intentionally for this reason, to demonstrate how humanity is about being and not knowing. With the lack of the tickticktick in the background Dunkirk’s first message is, ironically, hammered through: in a movie so packed with tension, it isn’t actually the tension that’s important, but how we escape it. Only later do you get introduced to some of the characters’ personal lives - Dawson is so determined because his son died - but that doesn’t matter, because the heroism is already there. If the movie is a breath you’ve been holding then the Little Ships are the moment you breathe out.

Character development is hardly present in the movie, which makes it all the more impressive that we still manage to feel for and care for every single one of them; I think this is one of the greatest achievements of the film, in that Nolan somehow gets to the heart of war and the rawest of our emotions. Too many war movies get bogged down in character development, the false belief that you need to know the character in order to feel for them shifting the focus away from showing actual war itself. But Nolan understands this, and makes the choice not to identify his characters. The three Mole soldiers look the same; the French soldier’s real name is never given; and Tommy’s name is a generic epithet for all British soldiers. They have no personal characteristics at all. And yet, when Gibson is drowning inside the boat, your heart seizes; you want him, desperately, to get out. Here Dunkirk takes on the shape of the great war novels, like the nameless French soldier in All Quiet On The Western Front. This is the horror of war - that everyone dies - and the real way to experience it is being frightened of death itself, not just fleshed-out characters you have come to feel for dying.

In fact there’s barely any dialogue in the movie, either, except for necessary communication; Bolton is the most heavy-handed in exposition, but otherwise words are limited to observations about the tide, speculation on target practice, explanation for locking the door. Which is why everything that isn’t technical carries so much weight. Collins’s breezy ‘afternoon’ regardless of his near-death experience might be played for laughs but it’s also a conscious remarking on the stereotypical British spirit. One that struck me deeply is Peter’s ‘he’s fine’ to the Shivering Soldier (or something to that effect) - in just one phrase the dilemma of shell shock, the question of blame, and the soldier’s innocence are perfectly captured. But my favourite, of course, as someone weaned on Churchill, is the speech.

As a twelve, thirteen year old I memorised that speech, word for word, all the way till the end. I’ve listened to it many times. And I can’t even begin to explain how emotional I got when Tommy began to read it out and all the cuts from each time period began to intersect with each other. If ever the movie was disparate (and I don’t think it was, and I don’t agree with people who did) it came together at the end, each thread drawn together by possibly the most iconic, recognisable historical device. The sense of unity, of destiny, of a swelling, growing belief in the job left. The two last images of the film - the burning spitfire and Tommy’s face - cleave so perfectly into each other; I don’t think I’ve felt that kind of breathtaking momentousness from an ending for a very, very long time. Farrier gets captured but he’s also arguably the biggest hero of the film, saving countless numbers of people on the beach that hour. He ends up captured and his plane ends up burning, but the Germans didn’t burn it - he did, and in doing so it becomes a symbol of defiance in the face of defeat. We are always reminded that this is a defeat. But that doesn’t signal futility and devastation.

One of the reasons I say that this isn’t a war movie is because the enemy is never really there. Besides the last scene, where Farrier is captured, you don’t see any German soldiers (and even those are blurred out). That gives you the impression that this isn’t about triumph, in any way, but about survival, as the old man in the end so neatly put it. All we did was survive. That’s enough. Many horrors of war are depicted here. Drowning in the locked hull of a torpedoed ship, waiting patiently on a packed bridge for Messerschmits to strafe you. Violence, while not graphic, is never shied away from. Tension and impending doom is built masterfully, whether through Collins’ helplessness watching Farrier or Bolton closing his eyes to wait for death. But while you get the feeling that it is inescapable, you never get the feeling that it is insurmountable, and that is what Dunkirk is about, really. My major qualm with the movie before I watched it was how they were going to turn it into a triumphant, gun-waving kind of thing when it was a defeat. But it’s not about defeating the Germans, because as Churchill said wars are not won by evacuation. Not even about the end of a battle given the continuous references to what is yet to come. It’s about what matters most to us, what the ‘Dunkirk’ used in modern British parlance now refers to: human spirit and endeavor. Battling on.

Dunkirk is probably not the greatest war movie I’ve ever watched (although that is a topic for another time). It has, of course, its problems. I’m not sure how much credence the lack of poc claim has as I haven’t had the time to go look it up yet, but other tiny things niggle here and there. Yet one of the major criticisms I’ve heard about this movie is that it’s too intense and action focused and, of all things, I think that that’s the least concerned anyone should be about it. You can’t capture all of war in a single movie. You can barely capture certain experiences. If other movies are allowed to develop other aspects, like character and the mundanity of war, why shouldn’t Dunkirk be allowed to dig deep into the terrifying tension and uncertainty that is so fundamentally a part of it (being shelled while in foxholes is another example that comes to mind)? There is emotion in intensity, and humanity is found everywhere. Even in the most painful, most terrible of times.

There’s a trope in Waiting For Godot about the weary, fallible hero, the human struggling to create meaning and stay alive in the most downtrodden noble sense. It’s a trope I’ve always thought applies to the way the British view themselves and certainly something that applies here, weary soldiers and civilians alike picking themselves up with the haunted promise in Tommy’s face. Youthful and yet tattered, dark and hollow yet with a measure of steel that lends backbone to that famous line: we shall go on to the end.

#dunkirk #dunkirk movie #christopher nolan #film analysis #i could go on about the cinematography more probably i need to watch it again #god the sound #cinematografix

7 notes · View notes