Christo­pher Nolan’s Dunkirk gets a dra­mat­ic main trailer

Is it just us, or is there some­thing dis­tinct­ly un-Christo­pher Nolan like about Dunkirk, his long-await­ed fol­low-up to 2014’s Inter­stel­lar? Yes it is a sweep­ing dra­ma of epic pro­por­tions, depict­ing the mass evac­u­a­tion of Allied sol­diers from the shores of North­ern France dur­ing World War Two, but war dra­ma doesn’t quite seem to fit into his non-lin­ear, sus­pense-laden oeuvre.

From the looks of this first trail­er, how­ev­er, Nolan has exe­cut­ed the sto­ry in his own inim­itable style, with Tom Hardy and Cil­lian Mur­phy team­ing up with the direc­tor once again for the first time since his Bat­man tril­o­gy clos­er The Dark Knight Ris­es.

Mut­ed colours make way for moments of brief vibran­cy as a sol­dier stares out over the expanse of the beach that is yet to become the scene of unmit­i­gat­ed hor­ror. The white, blue and beige colour palette evoke the visu­al style of Nolan’s 2010 film Inception.

The cast list also includes a fresh-faced, short-haired Har­ry Styles of One Direc­tion fame, whose debut per­for­mance many will be inter­est­ed to see and prob­a­bly keen to cri­tique. The singer-turned-actor stars along­side heavy­weights Ken­neth Branagh and Mark Rylance, so he has his work cut out for him as far as being the stand­out per­former goes.

Set for a 21 July bow, Dunkirk looks set to be a suit­ably action-packed and dra­mat­ic account of a mirac­u­lous escape from tyran­ny, but will it bring enough of the intrigue that has worked so well for the direc­tor in the past?

**Update – 05/07/2017**

The third and final Dunkirk trail­er has been released, and it con­tains plen­ty of gor­geous new footage. Check it out below…

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