Dunkirk: A Movie Review by Brodie Curtis

Rated PG-13 | War/Action | 1h 47m | 2017

Note: I am not a paid reviewer, and I went to see this movie for my personal enjoyment.

My second novel, ANGELS & BANDITS, has a scene set at the port in Nord where the German army had pushed the British and French to the brink in May 1940. The movie Dunkirk, released in 2017 and directed by Christopher Nolan, convincingly conveys the sheer terror experienced by the British infantry who were penned in on the beach by the Germans as well as those who came to their rescue. Scenes rotate between an infantryman who needs equal portions of desperate measures and favorable serendipity to gain passage home to England, Spitfire pilots dog-fighting with German Messerschmitts to protect troops on the beach, and a pleasure boat commissioned from a seaside harbor to ferry troops home. Suspense builds as camera shots shift constantly from tight to wide on the beach, in aerial combat, and with the small boat. Even as British soldiers are fish in a barrel for the German Luftwaffe on the Dunkirk beach, emotions of the beleaguered troops and stoic officers are remarkably restrained. The noose keeps tightening on the beach, in the sea and in the air, and a suspenseful unfolding of who is doomed and who survives is heightened through dark camera shots and fire, and tempo adjustments to background sounds and music. One of the most memorable shots is of an iconic Spitfire ditching on the surface of the Channel. The focus of the film is the men surviving the moment and others who exhibited unassuming bravery to help them—the strain they bear is expressed in their lined faces and frantic action —and not on their personal stories or motivations. In the end, over three hundred thousand British troops were brought home in the heroic rescue operation, and the film seems focus on the triumph and tragedy for a representative few rather than imagery of the grander scale of the event. Even so, a moving ending scene juxtaposes the weary evacuated soldiers trudging on into the gloom of a new day in England while heroism is justly recognized in the case of a young rescuer and in Churchill’s words to the House of Commons that inspired Britain to carry on. I applaud the film maker for trying to get to the gritty heart of the massive, possibly outcome-determinative WWII event that was Dunkirk.