Dear movie watchers and makers, dear Christopher Nolan,

Today I watched, in Holland, the movie Dunkirk, with great expectations, because I love movies and storytelling,I even do some minor work in it myself.

Of course you, gifted Christoper Nolan, did a great job in directing and intermingling several story lines, and it all 'landed' spectacular at the end! Great techniques, good atmosphere of the landscapes, boats etc. Actors were doing their jobs well, although there wasn't a lot of acting required.

I was interested in this movie because of family stories on WOII. We visited, as a child, many of these regions with our father. He shared a lot about WWII with us, his children.(he was taken by Germans and fled away, submerged, likewise his brother. This brother volunteered as a soldier in Indonesia (1945),in the wish AND illusion of being a hero, but history decided different on that!)

Thoughts on war in the direction of heroism I had to leave behind as I was about 13 years old. My teachers and parents kept telling stories about all the TRAGIC.These were the stories that were, to me, REAL. Somewhere,in the movie Dunkirk, I was missing this REAL story, although I'm convinced you all did you're utmost to create it.

Why is it for me so important that these stories are well told, and why I slowly got the feeling that the focus went to something else? Am I right to put it this way: wasn't it slowly turning out to become a men-made demonstration of new techniques? I mean like real- life sensations and insight in the feelings of the men in spitfire's, tanks, or boats? Is this the right focus on war? The real story? In wartime, Mr Death is a cruel lordship, as we all could see. But somehow Mr. Death had, in Dunkirk, too much charm. The real story is: It's not heroic to die in war, as the movie at the end seems to have told us. It's just very, very tragic when it comes this far.

BESIDES Don't we all feel that it is utter nonsense to follow a boy that survives some like three or four major strikes in streets and on boats? Boats that sink under terrible circumstances? Most of the time he even is INSIDE the boat that's full of water?Ever tried??? NO, you won't survive. It's a fairy tale. I don't buy it, because it's just made up for the story line. Of course he would have died at the very beginning, like all his mates. Somehow I didn't buy the fact that he showed up all the time in situations that were hopeless. Why working on this edge, and making hopeless situations heroic? What's the point of that??? (if it's not a fairy tale or myth or something like that, that speaks to the soul!) I'm very afraid that this romanticism is exactly the prelude for young people to think that war can make them heroes. War makes DEAD heroes, and as we are longing more and more for heroism, we WILL get our next war. Let's be brave in daily life, this is hard enough, isn't it?

And yes, sadly enough, the heroes of war often are just MADE heroes, as the boy in the newspaper. Most young men die of stupidity of choices that are made by their superiors or low instincts of others around them. Don't forget the money that's involved, or some other undercover deal or mission. I know a lot about major mistakes of the resistance in Holland during WWII..and inside quarrels. Dunkirk did show some of it, but it lost ground as it became part of the heroism.

What about the brave men at the dock? How could they be brave? They cannot be heroes of their own. That's the deep tragic. In war there is no OWN decision. You're in a machine that roles on. Which way? You can never tell. You cannot know how it will end, so you even don't know, during the war, if you really ARE at the RIGHT side.

SO Was it compassion and deep understanding that set the TONE of the movie?? Maybe you tried, Christopher, but somehow I think, I lost track. I don't buy the feelings you put into this movie, because for me, it's no good to cry victory on an enormous pile of death bodies, made by modern techniques. There must be other important tales to tell. I'm working on it, and of course I can tell you that's no easy task, because so many things in life do actually distract us, all, and our focus IS hard to keep. Certainly