Dunkirk

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Saw the movie last week in Imax format (recommended).

I think it is a great movie - not a historic documentary - as I and my two boys thought it did capture the anxiety, disarray, sometimes even sheer terror, of what it must have been to be on that beach and out on the sea close to Dunkirk.

Ever since I read (in Wheels & Tracks magazine) the comment of a movie director that "if the public comments on vehicles being incorrect, I did not do a good job to make a good movie" (or something along those lines), I have stopped looking at the details and try to get into the flow of the story they are trying to tell. I would have liked to see a little more background/depth in the main characters, but other than that the movie was very much able to keep our attention and even led to some discussion afterwards.

Of course there are many spoilers if you look into the details. One guy I know is a specialist in uniforms and webbings, he had comments I myself did not see. I did note the container cranes in the background and wondered if they could not have edited them out? And then forgot about it and focussed on what happened in the foreground. It must have worked well as I dit not spot the CMP!

On the plus side, they did put a lot of effort in getting the details right where possible: real, flying Spitfires, but of course the ones crashing and burning on the ground are replicas.

Another big plus: this is a movie about the Commonwealth armies! So it might even drop a coin in Joe Public's mind that it weren't only the Americans fighting WW2.

As long as you put off your nitty-gritty-military-equipment-details-anorak, it is well worth viewing on the big screen, I'd say.

HTH,
Hanno