I love both these films, and on a rewatch of Dunkirk, I was struck by how similar two specific shots were to the car chase sequence in One Battle After Another.
There are a variety of car chase sequences which have similar shots to OBAA, but I thought it would be a fun (difficult) challenge to cut a plane and car chase together.
Dunkirk
Tom Hardy’s Spitfire struggles on its last remaining drops of fuel to take down a German bomber, taking a second pass at an already sinking ship with oil bleeding out of its belly. British soldiers naively swim through the slick, napalm in waiting. Soldiers pull their comrades from the grease into the small boats. They stare in panic at the Nazi plane rapidly approaching, as they connect the dots. As Zimmer’s score soars, the Spitfire appears behind the bomber and attacks its engines, forcing it to bail. It’s not enough, though, and the soldiers know it. It will ignite the oil and anyone in contact with it.
One Battle After Another
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson, driving a purple Nissan Sentra, is desperately seeking Willa. His daughter was captured and is now on the run from biological Daddy Lockjaw and the Christmas Adventurers Club. As Willa speeds across the Californian River of Hills in a white knuckle Dodge Charger LD Interceptor, she’s being hunted by Tim Smith, a member of the Christmas Adventurers Club, in a Deep Impact Blue Ford Mustang Shelby GT 500. Willa’s escape turns to panic as she spots the Mustang in her mirrors. She’s also not aware that her actual father, Bob, is hot on their tail, so she has to save herself, using her own car as a weapon hidden behind a hill, laying a trap for Tim to smash into.
In addition to that specific moment (at 0.50 in my edit above) where Bob’s Nissan and Hardy’s Spitfire appear from the left of frame, (as we cut to behind their plane/car, as we witness their frantic chase to save the day), many other shots have direct or indirect parallels, which were a joy to discover when piecing it all together, it goes without saying that both sequences are not ‘as they come’ from their respective films. Timing/shot order have been tweaked.
It was a fascinating process cutting OBAA to Zimmer’s ‘The Oil’, the now infamous Shepard Tone heaps on another layer of nail-biting suspense to the OBAA material, and being able to time certain shots around sound effects from the two films, adds an additional dynamic to both. The roar of the cars as the planes move into position, or the soldiers in Dunkirk, almost egging on the Spitfire/Nissan/Charger really makes you rally for them.
I may have to do another edit comparing it to all the great cinematic car chases…