Really this just feels like Oscar bait to me. Christopher Nolan uses the Dunkirk story for the melodrama and you can tell he really just wanted to make war look cool on the big screen.

I'm not a huge fan of using destruction as spectacle, especially considering how a story about WW2 can be a meditation on humanity. This one is visually impressive for what it's worth, as Nolan actually understands how to use a camera instead of relying on CGI. Yet the story just feels like coincidence after coincidence likes it's building to a finale with a happy ending.

Then there's how this movie made me feel about the French. With the benefit of hindsight we all know that Nazis will take the beach and we know that they will conquer France. We know that for the next 4 years the Nazis will be in near total control over Europe and they're going to wreak all kinds of havoc and devastation on the continent. This film serves as a reminder to me how Europe fell to fascism because of the ineptitude of liberal movements and governments in the face of impending doom. And that the world had to rely on Stalin's brand of Socialism in order to survive. All of the proud nationalism that was rampant in the time led to the Nazis and there was no other brand of Nationalism that could defend itself against it. Yet the subject matter of the film tells us to be proud of the British patriotism during the war. And it ends with words meant to inspire us from the terror merchant that was Winston Churchill. And it makes me realize that liberalism will always refuse to learn the lessons of the past.

I didn't watch this in 2017 because I'm not a fan of war films or destruction spectacle, which is exactly how this film was marketed. I really only would recommend this to people who like war movies, especially since I fell asleep through my first attempt at watching this earlier this week.