Review of Dunkirk

A fairly straightforward war film, rather well done by Christopher Nolan as director. I didn't recognise many of the actors, so it felt like it was real stories...even though there are some big names in there. It cuts backwards and forwards between different groups in various kinds of peril, thus keeping up the tension. It's very well done, with more horror than heroism...the civilians are rather more heroic than the soldiers. There are a few cliched lump-in-throat moments...the navy captain on the mole remaining unflustered as the bombs fall around, the arrival of the little ships. The soldiers do look genuinely shell-shocked and fatigued.

Oddly the Germans barely appear at all, except as the origination point of bombs and shots. Right at the very end there are some shadowy figures in coal-scuttle helmets, but otherwise we see German planes but no pilots, whereas the British pilots get lots of close-ups. Come to think of it, there are no French people either, even though this is a town in France and 1,000 French civilians were killed. Actually tens of thousands of French soldiers were evacuated, and the French navy was heavily involved, but you wouldn't know it from the film. Nor would you know about the Indian, Moroccan and Senegalese soldiers present.

And there's no feeling for the battle itself, which was hard-fought and quite complicated, and involved strategic choices on both sides that had long-lasting implications. The Germans stopped their attack and concentrated on other pockets of British troops. The British refused the French request that they counter-attack rather than evacuate.