Critics’ and audiences’ praise for Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk has gone so far over the top that we can no longer consider it a mere film. It has achieved transcendence, transformed into an ineffable phenomenon that must be witnessed firsthand so you too can contribute your own worshipful burblings.

As Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair says, Dunkirk magically shape-shifts from a crude commercial product to a sublime outpouring: “It was a dance piece, then a music video, then a poem, then a prayer.”

Then, presumably, nothing but the pure sweet air breathed on us by God?