Cynthia Fuchs is director of Film & Media Studies and Associate Professor of English, Film & Video Studies, African and African American Studies, Sport & American Culture, and Women and Gender Studies at George Mason University. She has published numerous articles on pop culture and politics, most recently, "'A few brief moments': Truth and Image in Sports Documentaries," in Gender and Genre: Critical Essays on Sports Documentaries. She edited Spike Lee: Interviews (University of Mississippi Press 2002), and co-edited both Iraq War Cultures (Peter Lang 2011) and Between the Sheets, In the Streets: Queer, Lesbian, and Gay Documentary (University of Minnesota 1997).
Dunkirk turns war movie tropes inside out to articulate a broader theme, not only the truism that war is excruciating, but more profoundly, that war is always the same, that it repeats, that it cannot be won.
Lowery's movie transforms all manner of ordinary actions into weird little bits, most often offered in long takes and long distances, immobile images or slow frame movements.
Sally Hawkins lifts her complex role with a graceful energy, helped by Maudie's visual approach, which is sometimes delicately impressionistic and sometimes more artisanal.
Megan Leavey is not interested in the Iraq war as such. What it offers instead is the story of her journey, heartfelt and well-acted, but never surprising.
While exposing the fragments and fault lines of memories, I Called Him Morgan tells the stories of Helen and Lee Morgan. It's also a story of storytelling.