A truly epic story, drowned in a vat of noise
THE evacuation of Dunkirk is a superb subject for an epic film, almost biblical in its power. The burning oil tanks which threw up a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, the noble self-sacrifice of the French, the patience, the courage, the opportunity for civilians to take a full part in war, the transformation by deft propaganda of a defeat into a victory.
Above all, now that it is so long ago, a film could explore exactly why the entire British Army came to be standing up to its armpits in salt water being strafed by German planes, while billions of pounds’ worth of weapons and equipment (by today’s values) lay abandoned and destroyed on the shore nearby. Why, in fact, we came within inches of shameful capitulation. It’s an interesting story which most don’t know, and from which we could learn a lot. I’m afraid the new film does not do this. I was told it was ‘immersive’. It is, but not in a good way. It is like being lowered into a giant vat of noise, plus an unceasing parade of repeated miserable drownings.
There’s hardly any plot, almost no dialogue, no real characters. As usual, the supposed attention to detail is concentrated on costumes and a few old planes and ships. The surviving soldiers end up being loaded on to a 1970s British Railways Southern Region railway carriage, which the youthful makers presumably thought was old enough.
I do hope that someone now revives the far better 1958 John Mills and Richard Attenborough version, thoughtful, thrilling and flavoured with real experience of war, then common among adults. It’s only noisy when it needs to be.