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It's sobering to think of how the war would have gone had the British Army been destroyed at Dunkirk.
(The Germans tried the same trick - breaking out via the Ardennes - at the end of the war, but it failed them that time. The Allies won the Battle of the Bulge.)
Back to the movie: one think I liked about it is that the viewers don't know much more about the evacuation plans than the troops on the beach do. We are never allowed to see the full scale of the planning; we only get to follow a single civilian boat.
I also appreciated seeing the viewpoints from the air, land, and sea. I didn't get that until the end of the movie. Unlike 99% of movies, there is no backstory of the characters. Normally, you would think this would ruin the movie and make the characters one-dimensional, but somehow here, it works fabulously. Kind of like the original show, Mission Impossible.
The background to Dunkirk is that the British Army was on the left of the French line closest to the English Channel just as in the first world war.
The Germans attacked through the Netherlands and Belgium just as they had attacked through Belgium in WW1. The British and French armies advanced into Belgium to meet the German attack. Crucially, however, the German also mounted a massive mechanised attack through the Ardennes and broke through the French lines at Sedan. Those panzers advanced west towards the English Channel and in the rear of the British Expeditionary Force and units of the French army.
The German advance through Belgium and the breakthrough at Sedan left the BEF surrounded on three sides and cut off from their supply depots. The only way out was by sea. The BEF did try to defend Boulogne and Calais but both were captured by the Germans. That left Dunkirk as the only port from which the army could be withdrawn.
The withdrawal was not so much the result of poor military strategy rather than the result of the German breakthrough at Sedan.
Hopefully, this will give you some background as to the movie.
OK, thanks Jaggy and English Dave for your patience and explanation. Sounds like the Germans just brought more firepower than could have been imagined and was probably their high water mark for the whole war. It was probably difficult to predict the effectiveness of the new technology.
And if Hitler ordered a pull-back (to finish later), this ebb would surely be noticed in the movie.
War is hell so I tend to recoil from studying the strategic side, preferring to find stories about survival and humanity. Cheers
I'll be the minority dissent on here, and I'll say that while the movie was good, it didn't blow me away like I expected it would. For some reason it just didn't involve me like "Hacksaw Ridge" did (as a war movie).
I wanted to like it more, considering the source material of the bravery and heroism of the troops waiting to be evacuated. And I admire the technical skill by Nolan.
I guess because it's not like a conventional war movie I'm used to, it threw me off a bit. Perhaps I'll grow to like it more later. We shall see.
We saw it and while it was certainly better than most films out this summer, I was not as enthralled as I was with some other Nolan efforts...
I thought an important weakness was the almost total lack of any names to faces....
And Nolan did that with forethought...
IMO he wanted to emphasize certain aspects---
1---the cogs of war that were mentioned in the beginning when Brannaugh's character is talking to the Army man on the Mole--that Churchill wants 30,000 saved---just manpower to act as bulwark if England was invaded--which they definitely thought would be the case
2--the general level of heroism and duty exemplified by the soldiers waiting to be brought off and the armada coming to help---by presenting a nameless horde Nolan implies that all were equal in their heroism and efforts,
3--he is hoping maybe to create iconic images of duty, sacrifice, bravery, brotherhood by leaving his characters as "unknowns"...
Like the scenes w/the soldiers hiding in the boat waiting for the tide to come in...The Highlander group might be known to each other, but names are not exhanged w/the three new guys tagging along...which helps keep the secret exposed when they are looking for a scapegoat...so it works as a plot device in that instance but I think it ultimately hampers the film's ability to achieve greatness...
But while Tom Hardy and Mar Rylance's performances are totally commanding and do create portraits of personal heroism that exemplify and encompass all those armada sailors and the Spitfire pilots, I don't think it works as well for the soldiers...
It's sobering to think of how the war would have gone had the British Army been destroyed at Dunkirk.
(The Germans tried the same trick - breaking out via the Ardennes - at the end of the war, but it failed them that time. The Allies won the Battle of the Bulge.)
Back to the movie: one think I liked about it is that the viewers don't know much more about the evacuation plans than the troops on the beach do. We are never allowed to see the full scale of the planning; we only get to follow a single civilian boat.
Not so much the Allies--but the Americans--and specifically Patton if my understanding of that battle is correct...
The technical aspects of flying a combat mission were superb,
Spoiler
from fuel management, to the aerial ballet that is the dogfight. You know that with each close up of his hand pushing up the throttle increases the chance that he's on a one way mission.
It's sobering to think of how the war would have gone had the British Army been destroyed at Dunkirk.
(The Germans tried the same trick - breaking out via the Ardennes - at the end of the war, but it failed them that time. The Allies won the Battle of the Bulge.)
Back to the movie: one think I liked about it is that the viewers don't know much more about the evacuation plans than the troops on the beach do. We are never allowed to see the full scale of the planning; we only get to follow a single civilian boat.
Have you read Len Deighton's fiction effort "SS-GB" about the Nazi invasion of Britian or seen the streaming series "The Man in the High Castle" based on Phillip K. Dick's novels--about America losing WWII and being occupied?
The technical aspects of flying a combat mission were superb,
Tom Hardy was great in his role of a Spitfire pilot. He acted with his eyes letting us know his plans for the mission. Slight nods as he decided what he was going to do. The checking of his fuel enabling him to know when he needed to turn around, and go home.
This is not a film that follows the normal narrative. Nolan insists we concentrate on what is going on from different angles of the same scene. His insistance on as little use of special effects as possible, to ensure everything looks so real.
The guy on the boat seemed to belong to the time the film is set. I know the actor listened to tapes of real men involved in the boat rescue, and how they saw it, and how they felt duty bound to go and get those trapped boys on that beach in France. The film is full of old fashioned duty, and love of country.
OK, thanks Jaggy and English Dave for your patience and explanation. Sounds like the Germans just brought more firepower than could have been imagined and was probably their high water mark for the whole war. It was probably difficult to predict the effectiveness of the new technology.
And if Hitler ordered a pull-back (to finish later), this ebb would surely be noticed in the movie.
War is hell so I tend to recoil from studying the strategic side, preferring to find stories about survival and humanity. Cheers
Technically speaking the Germans brought more mobility than the allies were prepared to deal with. Later in the war at the Battle of the Bulge when arguably the Germans did have nore firepower the Americans were to move faster delayed and cut off the German penetration instead of allowing the British to be cut off and encircled
We saw it and while it was certainly better than most films out this summer, I was not as enthralled as I was with some other Nolan efforts...
I thought an important weakness was the almost total lack of any names to faces....
And Nolan did that with forethought...
IMO he wanted to emphasize certain aspects---
1---the cogs of war that were mentioned in the beginning when Brannaugh's character is talking to the Army man on the Mole--that Churchill wants 30,000 saved---just manpower to act as bulwark if England was invaded--which they definitely thought would be the case
2--the general level of heroism and duty exemplified by the soldiers waiting to be brought off and the armada coming to help---by presenting a nameless horde Nolan implies that all were equal in their heroism and efforts,
3--he is hoping maybe to create iconic images of duty, sacrifice, bravery, brotherhood by leaving his characters as "unknowns"...
Like the scenes w/the soldiers hiding in the boat waiting for the tide to come in...The Highlander group might be known to each other, but names are not exhanged w/the three new guys tagging along...which helps keep the secret exposed when they are looking for a scapegoat...so it works as a plot device in that instance but I think it ultimately hampers the film's ability to achieve greatness...
But while Tom Hardy and Mar Rylance's performances are totally commanding and do create portraits of personal heroism that exemplify and encompass all those armada sailors and the Spitfire pilots, I don't think it works as well for the soldiers...
You make a lot of good points. I think it was just trying to do too much with the material and it seemed to jump from one thing to another, with a bunch of anonymous faces. I get what he was trying to do as your points nail it. But personally I think the movie would have worked better focusing on a certain narrative structure.
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