That feeling of a pure adrenaline as the sound of a spitfire roars through the speakers making the walls shake reverberating in your chest, makes all the hairs on my body stand on end. Its not just a film anymore. You’re running along with the soldiers. You’re dodging those bullets. You’re trembling in fear wondering whats going to happen next.

There are a few ways that director Christopher Nolan could have approached this World War II depiction, and he hit the perfect mark.

Half expecting a narrator to over viewing every situation I was uniquely surprised by the excitement I felt at each visual as there were really no definitions between scenes. Fluid consistency between the three key characters depicts the evacuation from three views : sea, land and air. These views give us a look in to how everything that the airborne fleet, the volunteer sailors and the soldiers did collectively was sometimes overcome by mere dependency on how the other fared.  The “Oh, NO! ” moments as you hoped and prayed for every single being to keep going. Every moment passing another “Oh No!” moment added. During viewing the desperation followed by added situations on top of others shines a monumental light upon the courage of anyone in the military services who has seen any action.

There are points with little or no dialogue at all, which usually is huge no no in film as viewers get bored, but this only elongated suspense and the reality of how these people felt, constantly.  All aspects, the camera placement, the score the lighting of the shots brings this event to life. No matter how many times I’d learned about this in school, this really is the greatest depiction of the true battle at Dunkirk.

Emotional to the point of true tears of happiness at the final scene, anger as another bomb falls, and fear of an impossible situation being overcome.

This should be added to the History syllabus. This is all the info you will ever need.

Highly recommended, but prepare yourself wisely.