Dunkirk Critique

Hope is a weapon and survival is a victory. Those definitely were the spine of the movie Dunkirk, released in 2017, produced by Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas. The spine of the story was presented around all the hardships that the Allied soldiers in World War Two endured on the surrounding beach, water and sky in Dunkirk France. In my opinion, this movie showed a painful reality encased in a fictional context. It was probably true that they had to watch their comrades dying right before their very eyes. That seemed to be nearly normal back in the days in World War Two. Additionally, they probably had thought that they had been trained to deal with and respond ‘appropriately’ to bombs dropping over their heads in a short span of time.

Honestly, having a back up way of escape was a smart strategy, in the beginning. Another aspect that was a toss up between being either being really smart or really unsettling was when the soldiers commented that they can tell when the tide is rolling back in when all the dead bodies float back towards the beach. Counter to smart strategies during this time, was when the soldiers on another sinking vessel were engaging in basically the survival of the fittest. Truly, it was almost kill or be killed scenario when they ‘voted’ to send the possible German spy out of the ship. In another situation, another soldier was just so traumatized, he did not even possess the desire to go back to Dunkirk. All he wanted to do was go back to

This was mainly due to many small independent boats banding together to rescue the troops stranded on the beach and in the sea in Dunkirk. Even though they went under fire during the rescues, they preserved and it paid off. Switching gears, another brief aspect that is worthy to be touched upon was the scene in which a group of high ranking officers mentioned Winston Churchill in relation to an exact number of troops belonging to the nation, or something along those lines. Later on, a soldier read a newspaper with Churchill's remarks about the evacuation in Dunkirk and its ramifications towards the future of the war. In all honestly, it could be stated that his words echoed through the last legs of the war, and