Dunkirk is Christopher Nolan’s latest film, and by all the early accounts we’ve read it’s going to be a very visually impressive bit of cinema. There’s only one place in Australia you can watch it in its full 70-millimetre cinematic brilliance, though: and that’s Melbourne.
IMAX Melbourne is one of only six screens outside of North America, and one of 37 screens in total, to show Dunkirk in the 1570 film standard: 15-perforation 70mm, the large format film type that auteurs use to get the highest possible image quality for their movies — like Quentin Tarantino with The Hateful Eight. Nolan also has previous form with 70mm, shooting Interstellar in the format.
The majority of Dunkirk was filmed in 70mm, and exclusively in IMAX theatres — exclusively in IMAX Melbourne, because IMAX Sydney is goooooooone — the screen will expand vertically by up to 40 per cent to fill the entire IMAX display area.
Museums Victoria and IMAX will also have an exhibition of objects from the actual evactuation of Dunkirk in 1940, including a pennant flown on the foremast of minesweeper HMS Lydd. IMAX Melbourne’s opening weekend tickets for Dunkirk have already been snapped up after they went on sale earlier in the week. Advanced sessions starting from July 19 are on sale now [IMAX Melbourne]