Dunkirk (2017) – Review

Review Dunkirk

When director Christopher Nolan releases a new movie you are more less obliged as a movie lover to go watch it as soon as you can. He’s someone who lives and breathes cinema, who won’t go near filming digitally and isn’t a fan of VOD-platforms like Netflix and the way they release movies. Besides that he also likes to do as much of the special effects practically. Although his movies are a joy to watch from a technical perspective, they sometimes feel a bit sterile. For his latest movie he wanted to bring an important seconds world war moment to the big screen: the evacuation of the troops at Dunkirk. Continue reading

Interstellar (2014)

Review Interstellar

If there was one movie in the past year (besides the Interview) about which a whole lot of things were written, it was Interstellar. After its release my mailbox and Feedly were flooded with reviews, news articles and pieces which tried explaining the theory behind the movie. It was an overload of information and at the time I didn’t feel like adding too much. Continue reading

Following (1998)

Following is Christopher Nolan’s (Memento, Inception) first movie he wrote and directed. It has been made on a very small budget and took months to film as all the actors had day jobs and were only available during the weekends. After Nolan’s house was burgled he wondered what a burglar is thinking while he is walking through a house and sees things like pictures or items. Following is the execution of this idea.
Bill is a writer who randomly follows people on the streets. He slowly starts to get addicted to it and becomes obsessed by it. It slowly turns him into a stalker and one of the guys he is following notices this and start talking to him. Turns out that guy is a burglar and Bill is so fascinated by this that he asks if it is possible to join him to see how he does his job. It doesn’t stop with just watching and Bill keeps passing his own moral boundaries. Continue reading

Inception (2010)

The essence of a movie can usually be described in one sentence, which gives you enough information to get a feeling what the movie is about. This sentence has been formed based on an idea. When that idea has been thought up the script writer start expanding on it. Together with set builders and many other people involved in preparation they are the architects who create the world in which the movie will be set. This can be a single room or many locations, anything is possible.

When preparation is done the director and actors step into the world and take care in filling in all the small details. They do this by improvising, making changes to scenes or shooting it a specific way. All this takes places within the confines of the concept for the movie.
When the movie finally has been edited, it’s up to the person that goes to the cinema to step into this temporary reality. If the movie is a good one you’ll disappear in it, the world around you no longer exists and you forget that you are sitting in a chair at the cinema. You are actually in the place that is shown on the screen. The ending of the movie is the shock that takes you back to reality. If the movie was powerful and had some messages that resonate with your own ideas they might even become part of your own values. If that’s the case, the whole team behind making the movie has made a masterpiece.

Inception uses this concept, but instead of movies they use this on dreams. Christopher Nolan ( Following, Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige and The Dark Knight) shows his vision on what’s possible in your dreams, but has he managed to create a masterpiece? Continue reading