Dunkirk

Here's a very interesting article about the French army in both world wars.

theconversation.com/cheese-eating-surrender-monkeys-its-time-to-give-the-french-army-the-credit-it-deserves-81853

I thought it was really well done. And that seemed to be the general reaction of the audience this afternoon (1.30pm and the cinema was practically full). The under-statement was what made it for me (and DH said the same). No buckets full of blood and gore, no main characters with a huge back story, no unlikely heroics. There were two stand-out moments for me. When the little boats came over the horizon (goosebumps all round, even though it was hardly unexpected!) and the survivor reading Churchill's speech. The score was very good too.

A few people at the beginning of this thread said they would not go and see it if there was CGI.
Can't please everyone, obviously, but I think there was enough information on here over the past ten days to let others know if there is enough action for them.

I think there's always a problem with a film that's overhyped because one's expectation is so great. I didn't actually 'enjoy' it as much as I thought I would. However, I would quite like to see it again at a cinema, which is not something I would usually want to do with a film. The thing is, it wasn't a documentary; it was one directors interpretation of an event and, in that sense, it worked for me. But I can understand some people being disappointed.

I can never hear dialogue anyway. I can, however, watch Tom Hardy all day.

dj - The whole point of the film is what you don't like about it, Day6. Did you not read about it before you went?

No.

I knew it was about one boat and a particular group of men, that's all.

The reviews are mixed. I am not alone in being disappointed.

Today may be the last day for the documentary [in fact, it might have been yesterday].

I also enjoyed the film but I struggled to hear the dialogue clearly because of the booming sound track. Didn't really spoil it for me because, visually, I thought it was very well done. The acting was superb.

Thanks dj.

Channel 4. It's worth watching.
It's also worth reading the book by Joshua Levine, too.

We really enjoyed the film and are glad we saw it. I did notice the camera angles supposedly showing thousands of men on the beach. To me that is far better than using computer generated stuff. Could any film production afford the thousands of extras required to show the numbers of men waiting rescue.
Does anyone know which channel the recent Dunkirk documentary was on please?

But he scaled it down on purpose.
We have had films showing all the blood and guts, and the panic, etc.

The whole point of the film is what you don't like about it, Day6.
Did you not read about it before you went?

Well, with all the films (good, bad or indifferent) documentaries or discussions concerning Dunkirk, one thing, for me that always shines through is the incredible bravery and discipline of those men, both on the beach, in the water and manning those little boats. God knows how they did it, but thank God they did.

Nigglynellie, if you see the film there are lots of aerial shots sweeping the beach. At one point There were three lines of men at the waters edge and nothing more and although it was only a brief shot, the lines were short and exceptionally neat. I'd have said there were thirty soldiers and they looked like they were queuing for a teacher who'd told them to straighten up before they entered the classroom. No noise, apart from the booming soundtrack.

My point is the whole thing was scaled down by the director. The enormity of the problem, having hundreds of thousands of men trapped on a beach wasn't apparent. The director shot it in a certain way, and for me, his dubious creativity made the story of the evacuation rather sterile. Yes, it's about survival but I found myself not really warming to any of the soldiers or the boat crew. It didn't grab me.

I am sure others didn't pick up on the same things as I did and enjoyed the film more. It has been a success at the box office but I am relieved that I have spoken to others who were critical of it too. The man's view was that it was "OK" and nothing more.

The evacuation once it got going was desperate but never ever chaotic. The trapped men did line up calmly to await rescue, both on the beach and in the water, and the discipline and courage of those incredibly brave men is exactly the reason that so many were saved, any decent into panic would have resulted in only a fraction of the numbers rescued.
I haven't been to the cinema for donkeys years, and I don't think DH and I will be going to see this. It's bound to come out in a DVD and then you can turn the noise down!!

www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2017/jul/26/bloodless-boring-empty-christopher-nolan-dunkirk-left-me-cold

Hope I am not being a killjoy but I was very disappointed by the film. I concur with the review above. It didn't really move me at all. I came away feeling very little. It followed the story of just one of the rescue boats and just a small group of men.

I have read and seen many clips of Dunkirk. What an incredible bit of history. It's a fantastic episode of courage, determination, bravery, tragedy and fighting spirit. That this film made the evacuation less than exciting (for me) was strange. Dare I say it, it dragged slightly.

Not a spoiler but bring your earplugs. The backing soundtrack to the whole thing was loud, loud, loud and relentless. That spoiled it a bit for me too.

I went expecting a good film. For me it wasn't memorable or moving and given the subject matter, I find that strange.

Oh, calm single file lines of soldiers on the beach - very strange. It looked like a school fire drill rather than the chaotic and desperate situation of 300,000 men trapped at the waters edge with no where to go. Given we can do crowd scenes now with all sorts of cinematic trickery and special effects I felt this was a wasted opportunity to set the scene.

My eyes are ok [I think] but I never did see what I was supposed to see in those Magic Eye books!

Wikipedia (yes, I know!) have 338,226 men escaped, including 139,997 French, Polish, and Belgian troops, together with a small number of Dutch soldiers. Do they show the figures at the end of the film? I'll take a little notebook in case.

My daughter has the same problem with her eyes, dj. Those Magic Eye books were wasted on her as well.

I can only see out of one eye, so 3D would be no good for me. Anyway, I would definitely have been ill if I had seen it in 3D.

According to the book I am reading about Dunkirk, there were 20,000 French troops taken off the beaches, with 12,000 being taken captive by the Germans. The last ship to leave had 3000 Frenchmen on board.

No, thank goodness. I think that might be a step too far (though I do normally love a bit of 3D)!

Is it on in 3D, Maggie?
That would be worth paying the extra for.

So was the ending real, Tegan?

That programme about the RAF showed that the army on the ground could not know what the RAF was doing as they were too high up.
Someone complained about there being only three planes in the film. Apparently there are only 35 Spitfires still in working order throughout the world.

I suppose that's because the priority was to get British troops back first [they also refused to let RAF people onto the boats as they said they were for soldiers]and the French weren't rescued until the British were safe [this is going by what I saw in the film so I don't know if it's fact]. There were a lot of misconceptions about a lot of things, the main one at the time being the role the RAF played.

We're going to see it today too, at our nearest IMAX. I was interested to read in this weekend's Observer that the French in general know little about the evacuation. The Vichy government reported that British troops were evacuated and theirs left behind to be taken prisoner. Whereas over a third of those brought to Britain were in fact French.

We are going to see Dunkirk today, tickets bought. Rather unusual in that the last time DH and I went to the cinema together it was to see Towering Inferno in the 70s.