Hans Zimmer – Dunkirk (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Like Steven Spielberg and John Williams did, sometimes a film director and a musician form a really well oiled creative engine, managing to create several iconic works where movie and soundtrack blend into one, sharing the same kind of spirit beyond the link between images and music.

Both Christopher Nolan and Hans Zimmer have mastered the ability to create commercially successful movies and soundtracks with an undeniable inherent artistic quality to them.

They like twisting ideas and, yet, they know how to entertain and to give the audience a memorable scene, cue or melody, making their works overall accessible to everyone.

In 'Dunkirk', Nolan plays with time (as he already did had many times in previous films and would do once more in "Tenet") serving the story in three time rate frames: 1 hour in the air, 1 day within the civilian struggle when trying to help rescuing British soldiers from Dunkirk, and the own troops' struggle to survive in the days that lasted the Dunkirk evacuation.

Therefore, Zimmer uses here elements as Shepard tones, a sound structure that plays with the concept of time and its loops, and structures most of the score with a beating pulse along it, either in the background or more upfront, giving the whole thing a sense of urgency and impending threat.

As such, "Dunkirk" is one of Zimmer' harshest, less melodic soundtracks, where his sound designer self takes the spotlight in detriment of his composer persona.

Cold, relentless, it takes you from the throat and, in the few moments it will let you breathe is just to let you be aware that some kind of danger is near.

Zimmer will only give us a little melodic ease at the end, when he takes Elgar's utterly beautiful and solemn "Nimrod" and, playing with its tempo (of course), let us know that the rescue has been successful and that the boys are back home, as at the end of "Home" or in the gorgeous "Variation 15 (Dunkirk)"

I have always been a sucker for a memorable melody, so to me "Dunkirk" was a letdown, but if you are into more atmospheric stuff, you might come to really enjoy this one.