A treat or not ?

We had film vouchers for Cineworld from all the shopping scanning I have been doing for Nielsen. They needed using up before the end of the month and since we are busy the next two weekends we went to see 'Dunkirk' yesterday after I had finished work.

I was really looking forward to it, especially as the film had great reviews and we have been wanting to go all Summer. MasterShoestring was spending the day with a friend, so now was our chance.

The first hurdle was getting the vouchers accepted. We both forgot to bring our reading glasses and so could not read the tiny codes printed on the vouchers to use the automatic ticket machines. We ended up asking for help from the ticket checking girl and she directed us to the popcorn concession, who were able to purchase a couple of tickets for us !

Then into the tiny cinema and trying to find our seats in the dark. Fortunately, I had been able to see the plan outside the room, so had a rough idea where to head ! Then we had to survive the very noisy adverts !

But the worst thing was the very noisy, relentlessly war focussed film ! The only women in it are seen in brief scenes manning teapots and boats, no speaking. Mind you there is almost no speaking from anyone, just lots of bombing and machine gun fire. The sound track was so loud that I had to go for a walk in the woods when we got home.

Lots of people have told me how good this film is and usually I like Christopher Nolan's work but this one was too much for me. I guess my introverted nature suffered from the relentless two and a half hour assault on the senses which made me feel that I had been in the war. 

The cinematography is wonderful, you feel like you are flying with the planes, the actors really give the impression that they have been torpedoed and left on beaches for 4 days. However, my imagination is quite vivid enough to imagine all that, without needing to see and hear it. Watching the film made me wonder if I am just unusually sensitive or whether other people really enjoy this kind of thing. I remember being 11 at grammar school and being taken out of the school Christmas movie which was being shown as a treat because I found it too upsetting. Also when I was 5 and watching my first film, 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' again I had to leave because it was too scary. So it probably is that I'm a bit over-sensitive !

However, MrShoestring did not enjoy it either and we have resolved that anymore cinema outings will be very carefully researched. The blessing in this case was that the tickets were free instead of £10.20 each !