The few soldiers this film focuses on spend the entire film ignoring military discipline and trying desperately to save their own skins. These are exactly the kind of soldiers which Britain could have afforded to not evacuate from the beach. The main one threw away his rifle and ran away from the enemy. Not exactly Audie Murphy.
shareReal people... Not cartoon superheros...
Did you miss the thousands in the background waiting dutifully and following orders, or the selfless fighter pilots, etc...?
As to the on the begining who was running away while being under fire, the whole point was that they were in retreat? did you exoect him to take on the German army by himself?!
Sure, the film does show acts of desperate survival and some acts of cowardice and deception, but that is to add nuance to the various experiences all of these thousands of different young men when through...
The point is that they aren't all cartoon superheros, but are real people capable of honor, cowardice, courage, selflessness and selfishness... it makes everything matter so much more...
And the filmmakers are fuloy aware of what they are doing, at the end when they reach land the blind guy tells them well done, they respond that all they did was survive, he tells them that that was all what was required of them at that point... this commentsp shows empathy, nuance, humanism as well as an understanding of how valuble these troops are to have on home soil rather than stranded as sitting duck on the beach at Dunkirk... In the same scene, another man is basically calling these troops and pilots cowards, without knowing who had done what..
I expected a professional soldier of the BEF to at the very least hold onto his rifle. This is a low bar.
And yes, I noticed the other soldiers in the background. But the focus of the film was on the few who spent the film running away, and trying to sneak onto hospital ships.
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The Dunkirk evacuation had young and hopelessly inexperienced soldiers, and this is what Nolan wanted to show.
The film deliberately focused mainly on survival as opposed to bravery.
The BEF in 1940 was comprised of Britain's professional soldiers. Some were surely young and inexperienced, but it's not like they hadn't been trained. Expecting them to maintain discipline and not throw away their weapons in the face of the enemy is not asking that much.
shareYeah, sneaking cowards. For that stupid plot, nolan gets no oscars.
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