Genuinely a film of the decade.

Rating: 10/10 (8 September 2017)

I quite often flippantly rate films higher than they deserve immediately after I've watched them because of the initial excitement felt from the buzz coming out of the screening, I then re-look at my ratings days/weeks/months later and realise how wrong I was. That said, Dunkirk has been rated 10 and will firmly stay at 10 without question.
It's been a while since I've seen a film with such a small amount of talking, with such a minimal amount of character names that are explicitly given and that relies on such a relatively small plot in the grand scheme of film making. It's been even longer still that I have seen one that even though it lacks all of the above it still manages to make you care for every single soul on that beach.
That's not to diminish what happened there in anyway whatsoever, but looking at it from a film makers perspective, rescuing soldiers off a beach would usually be a 10 - 15 minute scene at most in any film. Nolan et al manage to ensure the 90 minutes pass with fairly minimal exposition, talking, minimalistic music design, lack of character 'development' so to speak, minimal location usage and above all else, crucially, minimal down time. Once you get through the first 2 to 3 minutes, it simply doesn't stop.
The score whilst sparse and difficult to listen to on it's own, feels very layered and textured, gripping and tension building - you'll catch yourself with clenched fists at least once purely because the music dictates a continual uneasiness, aided by the virtually constant threat of gun fire, bombing and torpedoes. It's an Audio / Visual masterclass that will no doubt be taught at colleges and universities in years to come.
Upon reflection, and this is what I love about Christopher Nolan as a director, none of the things I've mentioned above matter. The confidence this director has in the way in which he makes his films is right there in front of you. He throws out the rule book and creates his own set of rules. These usually would render films at the mercy of people like us who want to tear things to shreds purely because our opinion is the only opinion that matters and who cares what anyone else says.
But in reality, in the cold light of day, it's an utter stroke of genius. Anyone who is of a certain age in the UK will at the very least know the story of Dunkirk, will know the significance of what happened and what it was the pre cursor to. So for Nolan to effectively create a character out of the story rather than the characters within it is unfathomably brilliant.
I do not remember the last time I shed a tear at a film in the cinema. Or at least, if you'd asked me that yesterday I could have hand on heart say I couldn't remember. But I know darn well now that it happened today.
The cinematography is stunning, the music is excellent (alongside the film itself that is), the acting is perfectly balanced and nuanced, the direction is spotless it does and will always be at the top of the list for me with films to better. It's a war film but not as we know at and it benefits so much from that fact.
See it in the cinema if it's still available to see.