Dunkirk is gripping. Kenneth Branagh - Mark Rylance - Elgar - little boats - a young soldier stumbling through a news report of 'We will fight them on the beaches' ...
I had a few niggles. Can't imagine that rationed jam would have been slapped on the bread quite so generously even for returning heroes. (Perhaps that is a very female quibble about a war film!) And those train seats looked suspiciously modern.
It was edge-of-the-seat gripping, I admit. But I think ultimately rather forgettable.


The film that I can't get out of my mind is Land of Mine, which sadly far fewer people will see. This is the immediate aftermath of war. I had no idea that teenage POWs were forced to clear mines from the German coastline in defiance of the Geneva convention. What the film doesn't address, of course, is who the hell else was going to do it. It is harrowing to watch and, I thought, a far more interesting war film than Dunkirk.