I am very forgiving of directors and their angle/slant on the story they wish to tell. But this was freaking Dunkirk, 400,000 troops were on a beach, each thinking he'd die or end up in a prison camp. The skyline was smoke from hundreds of burning buildings, the audio was artillery and small arms fire. The mood was barely controlled panic. I loved the individual tales that Nolan came up with to illustrate the different stories of men in different circumstances. That (in my opinion) was well done. Each man's war is a different war, seen only through his own eyes. But one thing shared by all those men was the backdrop of smoke, gunfire and as the days passed, the stench of rotting corpses. One might also point out the French and British troops fighting to hold back that shrinking noose of German troops. That is inexcusable. Each scene inland could have used CGI to darken those skies with the smoke of battle, each audio could have included the muted sounds of guns, each sweeping scene of the beach could have shown 300,000 men instead of of a few hundred in neat queues. All done with the incredible magic of modern CGI. Nolan could have told those men's interesting stories in the same way, but added the chaos of that apocalypse in the background without losing a thing, but in fact elevating the film to a much higher level. Loved the film,but it could have been so much more. One could argue that Normandy didn't turn the tide of war, but that Dunkirk did. Yet, you'd never know that from this film. .
The French manning the barricades as Our Hero makes it to the beach informed me. Even Boss Lady recognized their helmets.
I suspect there were more than a dozen French troops holding that perimeter against the Germans. Even with the vaunted French elan, I suspect you need at least three dozen French troopers. .
Do you have a picture of all those thousands? Would it have been relevant to one guy shagging it for the coast? How many French troops did you count in the movie?
There's a good photo in Post #121, and you can google hundreds of others. The backdrop to Nolan's movie doesn't do the real thing justice. I suppose I can forgive him leaving out the thousands of French and British soldiers holding the perimeter, but even a few quick scenes would have been enough to honor those men who knew they weren't getting out and fought anyway. It was crowded, smoky, dirty and didn't smell none too good.
I was asking about the ones in the movie. I have seen pictures of the actual scene once or twice. Visited the beach in '73.
When I first watched this movie the editing threw me abit, I could follow but it didnt let me be able to attach myself to any of the characters. When I saw it the 2nd time it was alot better since I knew what was going on and found myself enjoying it alot more. For one of the more recent WW2 films out there,its pretty decent.
The "One Hour", "One Day", "One Week" tags get kind of lost, don't they. Their relevance isn't immediately understood. Second time around it's easier to watch.
51st Highland Division and other support regiments fought on for a further 8 days, surrendering to Rommel on 12th June 1940 further up the coast at St Valery en Caux.!!!
MTB 102 & Various other little ships were in Ipswich Docks (now known as the waterfront) UK. last weekend. Photo plus youtube video: <iframe width="500" height="300" src="" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
If I were to write everything I dislike about the movie, I'd have a 10 page essay, so I'll give you a summary. The French got basically ignored for their heroic stand/ counter attack at Arras, the British were portrayed as self-serving cowards at all times, You didn't even see a German soldier until the last 5 minutes of the movie, the Operation was one day according to Nolan, A spitfire shouldn't be able to glide for 5 minutes while in combat at 3000 feet, and as Kodiak pointed out, CGI was needed in 60% of the scenes. If you weren't able to tell already, I hated this movie.
Well I only watched it once, and that was one time too many for me, my opinion isn't popular, but I'm okay with that.
Sad.........but very true. However that doesn't mean some can't be entertaining and enjoyable, in my opinion though, Dunkirk wasn't one of them.......
