Don’t Watch Dunkirk

Since childhood, we are subjected to a spell. The music played on the radio, editorials scripted on the newspaper, the principle of punctuality cultivated from school are just a few of them. It is a spell which you break when you find yourself standing in a contour which the society terms a misfit. The spell of the mainstream is the mightiest of all employed by the powerful.

Pseudo-Globalization

You are supposed to fall in line no matter what. The concept of mainstream became a powerful force after Globalization, or should one say Pseudo-globalization. The Anglo-American world controls almost everything you see, that you are fooled into believing that life is lived in the same way everywhere in the world. How many stories have we heard from the dry lands of Chad? The experience of a daily commuter in Chile, lost love in the ravaged land of Afghanistan, friendship in the island of Madagascar, brave soldiers from the lands of Russia are far away from our purview. 

Savages

World War II is considered as the greatest man-made disaster in the last century. It could have been the worst ever. Irrespective of the sides involved in the war, there was one common feature which cut across all of them. The desire for imperial dominance, each nation had colonies in what is now portrayed as the Third World. No matter which side you were on, you were a savage.

The film Dunkirk aims to celebrate the effort made by the British to evacuate a significant number of the French when the Germans invaded France. I don’t understand how you are supposed to take sides when Vultures populate both sides of the conflict. Routing for the British who stamped us for more than a century, on a cinema screen is the last thing I would want to do.

A genius

My fondness of Christopher Nolan blossomed after The Dark Knight. My knowledge for appreciating cinematic excellence is less than nascent. That did not prevent me from achieving a state of Wonder as I experienced it. The struggle between a Stoic (Batman) and a Nihilist (Joker) could not have been portrayed any better. Philosophies rarely seen on the Mainstream was beautifully masked by comic characters to become a blockbuster. I am certain that no cinematic genius could have pulled that off.

But when such a genius wields his magic wand to depict one side as the brave, equations change dynamically. Movies are a powerful medium and ideas propounded through them get cemented in your mind strongly. Things would have been different if we watched German and Russian movies as frequent as we came in contact with Anglo-American culture. That would present a balanced view on the dynamics of World War II.

Not just Dunkirk

It would be short-sighted to restrict this idea to a single movie. This applies to every idea and opinion which exists locally. The stories of trans-genders, the lonely, the forgotten farmer, the ignored manual scavenger, stifled tribal and most importantly our women, need to be told. If justice was simple and binary life would have been so easy. Answers and truth lie beyond Mainstream. You just need to seek.

P.S. For those of you, who are catching the movie, make sure that you watch a German movie on World War II. Just to get a balanced equation, even if Christopher Nolan is not directing it.