From May 27th to June 4th, 1940, the French port city of Dunkirk witnessed one of the most significant and history-altering military operations ever undertaken, the evacuation across the English Channel of nearly 400,000 British and French soldiers, right from under the teeth of the German army. You would know nearly nothing about it from watching Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-nominated Dunkirk, which is up for awards for best picture, best director, cinematography, production design, sound editing, and original score.
This is because Dunkirk isn’t really about the historical Dunkirk; it’s about Nolan’s artistic-cinematic vision. It’s a vision most critics raved about, rounding…