A Quick Review of Dunkirk

Hello all! I apologize for the lack of updates lately and, unfortunately, there will be even fewer in the coming months. In addition to my normal day job and writing, I've also accepted a university lecturer position so my hands are pretty well tied for the moment!

I saw Christopher Nolan's new film, Dunkirk, on Friday night, and I enjoyed it so much that I felt that I should put my feelings into words. a fair warning to those of you who haven't seen it; there will be a few minor spoilers below, but I am going to try to keep any major plot points from slipping in. That said, beware if you haven't seen it yet!

Just in case you're impatient, I'll get straight to the point by saying I loved the film. It might (I say might because so far I've only seen it once) might be in my top five war films of all time. I am putting it up there with classics like Zulu and The Longest Day. What really sets this movie apart, especially apart from my other all-time greatest war films, is that it does not rely on action to create the drama. Instead the film managed to be dramatic simply through the character's emotions, which is even more impressive when you consider the fact that there are only a few hundred lines of dialogue in the entire 2-hour film.

Nearly everything portrayed in the film happened during the actual Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of Allied forces at Dunkirk. Most of the lines spoken in the movie are either paraphrased or taken word-for-word from actual quotes from participants in the operation. Most of the major plot points also come directly from real life, and the main characters all seem to be composites of multiple real-life people involved in one way or another with the 1940 evacuation.

BEF soldiers qeueing up to evacuate. Many are wearing gas capes.

I won't mince words; I cried during this film, and it got me to tear up, either with sadness or pride, more than once. Most war films fall into one of two tropes; being overly dark and gritty to criticize war, or overly glorious and patriotic. Dunkirk manages to avoid both, and all of the feelings a viewer experiences are similar to those of the real people being caricatured on-screen. The movie is stressful, sad, patriotic, glorious, heroic, and more besides. There are heroic characters, cowards, and, mostly, just a lot of frightened young men handling stress that none of us can imagine in their own way.

 One of my favorite things about the film is that the Germans are never really seen in the film. Their aircraft are viewed, and we hear their gunfire, and at the end a blurry squad of soldiers is seen in the background, but otherwise the Germans remain, for the most part, an unseen but constantly felt threat. This achieves two goals: the movie becomes about the characters and their feelings, not an us vs. them plot, and it helps us feel the constant background stress and fear that our characters (and the men at Dunkirk) are experiencing. When are the Germans coming? What can we do to get away?

Harry Styles

The acting is fantastic throughout. Harry Styles, famous mostly among teenage girls as a member of the boyband One Direction, did a great job in his debut. This is even more impressive when you consider that, as noted above, he has very little dialogue and had to convey emotions solely through physical acting. Kenneth Branagh plays a Royal Navy Commander based on several characters, particularly Commander James Campbell Clouston, a Canadian who acted as the pier-master during the evacuation and was killed while being evacuated near the end of the operation. His character (and those he interacts with) serve as our sort of narrators, and the plans for the evacuation are explained to the audience mostly through their dialogue.

Cillian Murphy plays a BEF soldier suffering from PTSD, and he did a great job. He managed to be sympathetic and realistic, and didn't ham it up in a way I've seen many other actors portray the condition. Mark Rylance plays a civilian piloting once of the civilian "little ships" which took part in the evacuation, and as always he was great. The real standout was Tom Hardy, who portrays an RAF Spitfire pilot. He looked, acted, and spoke exactly the way that real RAF aviators did, and I applaud his casting.

Tom Hardy as RAF Pilot Farrier

In terms of historical accuracy and realism, the movie did a superb job. As noted above, many of the incidents that actually took place are shown in the film, although being experienced by just our main cast instead of the diverse group of people in reality. The inaccuracies are mostly done for plot reasons. At the very beginning of the film we find one of our main characters under fire from Germans in the town of Dunkirk itself. He escapes, and makes it to a perimeter being manned by a French Army unit. In reality the Germans didn't have ground forces enter Dunkirk proper until the final day of the evacuation. They were held off by BEF and French forces in a wide perimeter around Dunkirk until the rearguards began their own evacuation. This was done to increase the drama, and helps to remind the audience of the men (mainly French) who heroically stayed behind to protect the evacuations, so I am ok with it. There are similar changes in terms of timeline and other details, but again, all of these are for dramatic or clarity reasons and even the most nitpicky historian should be ok with them.

The real Dunkirk Perimeter on May 26, 1940. This perimeter held more or less intact until June 2-3, when the final rearguard units began to disengage.

Artist depiction of the "melee" fought over Dunkirk on May 27, 1940,
between 48 RAF Spitfires and a large Luftwaffe formation.

The main inaccuracy is the way in which the RAF is portrayed. Many people, mostly because of eye witnesses on the beaches who saw few friendly planes, think that the RAF had little role in Dynamo, but this wasn't the case. Most of the RAF aircraft that took part in the operation were operating deep into France and Belgium, covering still-retreating units and trying to stop Luftwaffe aircraft from making it the the beaches and boats in the first place. There were aircraft working over the ocean, but they were few in number. Mostly they flew high above, attempting to intercept dive-bombers before they could begin attack runs or fighting bomber escorts. Some RAF aircraft were operating at the very low altitudes portrayed in the film, but again, this was rare. While not necessary an inaccuracy per se, I note it because many viewers may be under the false impression that the RAF routinely operated in a manner similar to the one shown in the film.

My biggest criticism is that the films starts as the evacuations are going on. I understand why this is done, but for those not familiar with the history behind the evacuations I feel it takes some of their impact away. By the time evacuations started many of the British units escaping had been fighting for a week straight while withdrawing from the Germans. They were dirty, exhausted, and out of supplies, and knowing this would have heightened the drama for viewers. There's a brief written explanation of what is going on at the start of the film, but being shown some of the retreat may have been good.

The props and such are mostly very accurate. The troops mostly looked too prim and clean; as noted above, the BEF and French forces had been in a fighting retreat for a week. Most of them were exhausted, out of supplies, and wearing tattered dirty uniforms. Many of the characters are a bit too clean to be really accurate. Related to this, I'd like to take just a second to talk about hair. At least since Band of Brothers, I've noticed a trend of actors wearing haircut that is way too long to be accurate. They're usually in 1940s style, but not at military regulation length. Of course many soldiers grew their hair out, particularly in combat, but it's still common enough in film to be worth noting. I bring it up here because a soldier ( 2nd Lieutenant William Lawson, Royal Artillery) at Dunkirk actually did have to get a haircut after receiving a chewing out by his father, a brigadier general for having hair longer than regulation!

I should also note that, similar to the criticism about uniforms above, the beach in the film is far cleaner than how it actually looked during the evacuations, at least by the end of the operation. The British abandoned most of their gear and baggage on the beach, and several survivors noted how cluttered it looked in the final hours of the operation. You see vestiges of this in the move (like thousands of rifles piled against a wall in one scene), and I guess Nolan didn't want to or couldn't litter up the beach too badly (Dunkirk was filmed on-location in Dunkirk, France). I simply note it here for completions sake!

Some of the prop inaccuracies are understandable. The German fighter planes in the film, which are supposed to be Messerschmitt Bf 109s, are portrayed by a Spanish Hispano Buchon. This aircraft was a Spanish copy of the Bf 109, but had some notable differences. I am ok with this; flying 109s are kind of rare, and the Buchon has been used regularly as a Bf 109 stand in in many films and TV shows because it's "close enough" to the casual viewer.

Comparison of the Hispano Buchon (Above) and Bf 109 (Below). Note the radically different nose shapes. 

The British destroyers in the film (6 British and 3 French were sunk during the actual evacuations and dozens took part) are clearly newer vessels that have been dolled up to look like older ships. I wasn't sure what they were, but after looking it up it turns out that the Destroyers in the film were portrayed by a late 1950's French destroyer, Maillé-Brézé, or by retired Dutch vessels. Again, I am ok with this, as there aren't any surviving 1930's British destroyers of the type common at Dunkirk. There are the usual occasional anachronisms and minor errors (I am not positive, but I think a few of the background buildings in the town of Dunkirk are post-war structures), but nobody is perfect and none of them are bad enough to be detracting, even for the serious historian.

The French vessel used as an H-Class Destroyer in the film.

One of the coolest things to note about props in this film is that several of the little ships seen in the movie are antiques, and actually took part in the real evacuations in 1940. This wasn't necessary, but it was a great little detail for Nolan to add and was a good way for these little vessels and their crews to get some of the recognition they deserve. 

Sundowner, a yacht used during the Dunkirk Evacuations. While not used for the film, the boat featured in the film, Moonstone, seems to have been inspired by this boat. Famously, Sundowner was owned and operated by the former Second Mate on the titanic, who made a trip to save stranded soldiers during Operation Dynamo. 

I urge anyone reading this to see the film. It's an important story, and one that many people especially in the United States aren't aware of. It's also one of my new favorite historical films, and that itself should be recommendation enough for anyone who knows me! If you'd like to learn more about the 1940 Battle of France or Operation Dynamo, I have a couple of reading recommendations below. That's it for today!


 Further Reading
The Miracle of Dunkirk: The True Story of Operation Dynamo By Walter Lord. This is the go-to book on Dynamo, and it was the book I re-read to brush up on the operation before I went to see the film. Written in the 1980's, Lord spoke to numerous survivors (British, French, German, Belgian, and civilian) of the evacuations and it's written in a style similar to other great Second World War works like The Longest Day. So many of the incidents and quotes in this book are used in the film that I am positive it was Nolan's primary reference during filming. 

Air Battle for Dunkirk: 26 May - 3 June 1940, by Norman Franks. First published in 1983, this work is getting ready to be reprinted for the first time in 20 years. It's an in-depth look at RAF operations during Dynamo, and is important because of the common myth that the Royal Air Force weren't very involved in Dynamo. 

To Lose a Battle: France 1940, by Alistair Horne. There are a number of works on the fall of France in 1940, but I chose this one mostly because I really enjoy Horne's writing style.