Dunkirk

Hedged-in and horrorstruck, 400,000 soldiers await evacuation from France to Britain.

The blitzkrieg having overwhelmed brave defences, sanctuary upon the continent is rapidly diminishing.

Those who avoided capture or weren't stuck fighting against maniacal odds, found themselves awaiting a rescue that was itself fraught with peril.

On a lonely beach in Dunkirk.

Nazi aircraft bombing them from the skies while u-boats viciously lurked beneath open waters, hope nevertheless still reigned, as the absurdity of their position encouraged resilient pluck.

And so a fleet of civilian boats left Britain's shores to dare save them.

In possession of nothing less than the will to endure that drives so many, they immediately dropped everything to boldly challenge Hitler's despotic ambition.

With resounding allied success.

Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk viscerally threads the line between despondency and fortitude as impossibility is flipped the bird by land, water, and sky.

Heroic acts undertaken by those calmly balancing risk with resolve, Nolan's script modestly yet courageously envisions the potent danger.

A well-edited film (Lee Smith) which patiently blends the restrained passions of men statically suturing on the ground, with those defending them above and approaching by sea, the staggering unnerving losses counterbalanced by fortifying victories, aeronautic adrenaline, nautical initiative, Dunkirk celebrates as it suffers, with unified tripartite tenacity, presenting inherent atrocities without sensationalizing the violence, crisp resolute solemnity as opposed to sadistic sanctimony, steady as she goes, into the great beyond.

The numbers don't add up but its genuine character far outweighs what visual enhancements would have offered.

The real crafted realistically.

It never ages.