The evacuation of Dunkirk is one of these moments in history that splits opinion in half - was it a defeat or a victory . There's no middle ground on the argument . Some state that the British Expiditionary Force ( BEF ) losing 68,000 men killed , wounded or captured during the battle of France and leaving all their heavy equipment behind can't be described as anything less than a defeat . The other argument is that 200,000 British troops were evacuated along with 140,000 French and Belgian troops is the epitome of snatching a victory from the jaws of defeat . Regardless of your views ( I'm on the victory of sorts side )it was a pivotal moment in history and this film tells the story of that moment
DUNKIRK tells the story too well . By this I mean from the very opening sequence we're shown a history lesson as newsreel tells of " The Phoney WAr " . Cut to a war office were a group of war reporters are given a briefing " X corps is guarding the Y Flank while Z corps is BLAH BLAH BLAH " One sturdy seen it all before correspondent isn't convinced as he tells his colleagues that " This is the biggest mas maneuver of the war so far this isn't a manvoure because ... "
All this sounds painfully unaturalistic as we see the same corespondent visit the French embassy to be told by the French ambassador that the Germans have broken through the Maginot Line as in " The Magniot line was reinforced by two and a half million men . How many men have the British sent ? two hundred thousand , three hundred thousand ? BLAH BLAH BLAH " It's absolutely impossible for someone in authority to open their mouth without factual statistics and in depth analysis being given out so it's nice when the action cuts to The Battle Of France
Actually Coporal Tubby Binns platoon also suffers from the dialogue disease that the home-front suffers from " We move up to the front in order to protect the French flank at ... " and we're later shown a scene on the beaches were a RAF man points out that the RAF can't provide cover because of a number of factors . No one no matter who they are or where they are feel the need to spout exposition regardless of the fact that there's no need for them to do so and is very problematic for the film
I notice the screenplay is credited to two screenwriters . I have no knowledge of the film's production but my instinct is at least one of them is an academic historian who was told to emphasise the details of the operation while the other is a trying to bring a human element to the dry history lesson . If this is the case the dramatist has failed because while it's not a dry dull history lesson it is certainly a bit too dry
This is a great shame because some scenes do work quite well and is rather graphic for a 1950s British war film such as Tubby trying to convince himself that his commanding officer was dead before a lorry exploded or the aftermath of a refugee column being shot up by the Luftwaffe where a young child runs to its dead mother . It's an outstanding film when it concentrates on these scenes but is frequently let down by the painfully expositional dialogue
DUNKIRK tells the story too well . By this I mean from the very opening sequence we're shown a history lesson as newsreel tells of " The Phoney WAr " . Cut to a war office were a group of war reporters are given a briefing " X corps is guarding the Y Flank while Z corps is BLAH BLAH BLAH " One sturdy seen it all before correspondent isn't convinced as he tells his colleagues that " This is the biggest mas maneuver of the war so far this isn't a manvoure because ... "
All this sounds painfully unaturalistic as we see the same corespondent visit the French embassy to be told by the French ambassador that the Germans have broken through the Maginot Line as in " The Magniot line was reinforced by two and a half million men . How many men have the British sent ? two hundred thousand , three hundred thousand ? BLAH BLAH BLAH " It's absolutely impossible for someone in authority to open their mouth without factual statistics and in depth analysis being given out so it's nice when the action cuts to The Battle Of France
Actually Coporal Tubby Binns platoon also suffers from the dialogue disease that the home-front suffers from " We move up to the front in order to protect the French flank at ... " and we're later shown a scene on the beaches were a RAF man points out that the RAF can't provide cover because of a number of factors . No one no matter who they are or where they are feel the need to spout exposition regardless of the fact that there's no need for them to do so and is very problematic for the film
I notice the screenplay is credited to two screenwriters . I have no knowledge of the film's production but my instinct is at least one of them is an academic historian who was told to emphasise the details of the operation while the other is a trying to bring a human element to the dry history lesson . If this is the case the dramatist has failed because while it's not a dry dull history lesson it is certainly a bit too dry
This is a great shame because some scenes do work quite well and is rather graphic for a 1950s British war film such as Tubby trying to convince himself that his commanding officer was dead before a lorry exploded or the aftermath of a refugee column being shot up by the Luftwaffe where a young child runs to its dead mother . It's an outstanding film when it concentrates on these scenes but is frequently let down by the painfully expositional dialogue