Dunkirk

What a masterpiece!

This is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen and if it doesn’t win this year’s Oscar, it will underscore how artistic merit has little to do with winning the big prizes.

Everything about this movie is superb. Visually it is spectacular. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. The sound effects made me think I was right there – on the beach, in the Spitfires, on a small pleasure craft pressed into action to rescue the British Army stranded at Dunkirk.

The music was perfect. It sent chills down  spine. It works gradually to a crescendo using motifs fromSir Edward Elgar’s Nimrod from the Enigma Variations –  an inspired choice.

The movie reminded me of Mrs. Miniver – the wartime tear-jerker that won six academy awards. That, too, was a great movie about Dunkirk.

What I think North Americans and young people may miss about this story is that it was a fleet of weekend sailors – in this movie, played superbly by Mark Rylance – that saved the British Army at Dunkirk. Thousands of small craft set sail from small harbours and ports around Britain to save the soldiers who had been pushed back to the French coast by the Germans. Average Britons braved German fire to save their comrades in arms.

That was what was so special about Dunkirk.

Be sure to go see it.