A war film like none other

IN May 1940, some 400,000 British and Allied troops were trapped on the beaches of the French town of Dunkirk after losing the Battle of France. Surrounding them, closing in, was the German Army. Home was just 41 kilometres across the English Channel but the harbour was too shallow for the Royal Navy's rescue vessels.

Operation Dynamo was the epic effort undertaken by the British Expeditionary Force to evacuate them against impossible odds.

Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, co-produced and written-directed by Nolan, reconstructs the …