Reviews

In capturing the despair of Dunkirk this film does a good job. That it showed the vulnerability of the ships to attack, it was excellent, and the horrifying scenes inside sinking ships was outstanding. The sense of hope when the small boats arrived was deeply moving, especial to the strains of Elgar's Enigma variation, Nimrod.

This representation is, though, flawed. The beaches were littered with destroyed vehicles and guns; the tidy holiday beach in the film did not exist. The causalities on the beach were few because the sand reduced the impact of the bombs. The real disasters took place on the boats.

But I had a patient who was captured at Dunkirk. His story of survival was documented in a diary, although it was mostly concerned with a forced march back from the POW camp in Poland where he spent five years down a coal mine, completely in breach of the Geneva convention. On every day, if there was nothing else entered, he entered "Three cigarettes" or whatever. Did you see a single cigarette in the film? I know political correctness reigns, but almost every single soldier would had had a half smoked fag in his mouth. The streets of Dunkirk in the opening scene were far too tidy, and there is no allusion to the breakdown in discipline with soldiers looting. This depended on the battalion, some maintaining strict discipline but over all it came close to anarchy.

But my main concern is that there is no humour in the film. If anything is true of the British soldier, it is poking fun at a situation, however desperate. The jokes got blacker and blacker the worse the situation, but jokes there were.

My patient died from his terrible lung condition resulting from his capture and enforced labour down the coal mine, but at a good age. He was one of the most positive men I met.

I had, of course, read the reviews of this film before unintentionally falling upon it by chance on Christmas television.

I have long lamented the lack of charm in most of the recent Disney films, for example, indeed the absence of charm in today's society in general, but it is present in this film in abundance. Not only is this film visually captivating but I was frequently moved to tears by the unexpected pathos of this story, which is a microcosm of the experiences of that most extra-ordinary generation who fought and survived the Second World War and who's members, through age and slow disease, are now virtually all departed from this world.

This film is sincere, amusing and observant, and like the Snowman, however different in style, will endure forever.

There are few science fiction stories more compelling than Dune with its extraordinary ecological creation, the desert world inhabited by giant worms, against a backdrop of interplanetary warfare and politics. There is no story quite so wonderful and complex. And it is thus strangely believable. Is it possible to film such a thing? I confess that the film misses some of the complexity of the book. That is inevitable. But the film also has great strengths. Visually, I found the Art Deco sets, mixed with a touch of baroque, quite stunning, and the music captured the mystic prophesies and the transformation with a genuine beauty and mystery. It contrasts the evil of Baron Harkonnen well against the House Atredies. The sense of anticipation of the arrival of the prophet and his realisation of his destiny is captured with reverence and dignity. The quality of the acting all helps, as does the presence of Francesca Annis at her most beautiful.

This film has been much under-rated. Watch it.

Never mind the three D bit. Never mind the relatively predictable story. Never mind the arguments about racism etc. Did not Lawrence of Arabia, a famous Englishman, inspire and lead the Arabs in revolt against their rulers? There are precedents for the idealism that inspires people to support the other side.

But the one thing I took away from this film was the extraordinary vision of the Pandoran world. The creativity behind the imagery and visual beauty is stunning: Who cannot be rendered breathless at the first appearance of the seed of the tree of life, floating delicately through the air like a jellyfish? Or the fabulous floating mountains? We leave the cinema, always a modern building, surrounded by our modern architecture, and we are disappointed. We want so much to visit the all too real world that Cameron has created. That is the test for a truly brilliant film. Well done Cameron! And a note of support for Lang. He portrays a brilliant, ruthless baddie. Sadly, while the military needs such people, he rightly represents what people fear in colonialism with its military, political and cultural insensitivity.

This film deserves, and is achieving, every success. It has raised the bar for cinematic standards.