The Amazing Soundtrack of the movie Dunkirk

Dunkirk is a 2017 movie directed by Christopher Nolan. The soundtrack it features is composed by Hans Zimmer. It is set during the time of Dunkirk evacuation of World War II.

The music, in my opinion is very grippy here. It keeps you clung to your seat, in anticipation of something very eventful to happen. You get to know about the imminent scenes beforehand because the soundtrack is composed in that way. However, if you listen closely, you’ll notice that as the scene approaches, the orchestra rises higher and higher, but never really reaches the crescendo. This creates a sense of tension, which complements the way the events unfold on the screen. Upon realising this, I found out that there’s something called a ‘Shepard Tone’, in which there’s a series of overlapping tones, that are one or two octaves apart, which rise, and the volume of each tone is set in such a way that when this series is played in a loop, it seems that the pitch is rising indefinitely, whereas in actuality, it isn’t. This creates an auditory illusion, and Nolan is quite fond of it, as the same effect can be found in most of his other movies too.

In conclusion, I’d like to say that the music almost creates a heavy and dark side to the characters and their actions. It does so exceedingly well and augments the entire film experience. Add the fact that it won two Academy Awards (Oscars) for Best Sound Editing and Mixing.