I’m off racing at Spa next week, and on the way intend to do a little respect paying at Dunkirk and Ypres. I have recently unearthed the military history of my Great Grandfather (an Irish Republican) who served with the Royal Munster Fusiliers through Gallipoli, Palestine and the Western Front – being Gassed and eventually sent home to die 6 years later.
In advance of my crossing to Dunkirk I have been re-watching “Atonement” – a film I avoided through a general dislike of Kiera Knightly’s work. I wish I hadn’t. It’s an absolute gem of a film, and what really stands out for me is one particular scene, which is an equal to anything by David Lean, in which a full 5 minute 20 second steadicam scene is run across the evacuation beaches at Bray Dunes. What really makes this scene of absolute pathos – the bottling up and attempted destruction of Britain’s regular army, is the absolutely perfect music which accompanies it.
Bray Dunes - as seen in "Atonement"
It’s a piece entitled “Elegy for Dunkirk” by Dario Marianelli – which, as a function of the action on screen segues through a group of soldiers singing “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” It’s perfect, and comes close to bringing a tear to my eye every time I hear it. It’s so linked into the real horror of war – not the short stint of uniformed service put in by me, after the Cold War and before the present disaster in the Middle East.
I’m trying to think of another piece of Music which so captures the mood of a scene and point in history, and I’m struggling.
