New Dunkirk movie to be made

Around noon on June 6, 1944, the Liberty ship Sambut was hit by German shellfire in the Dover Strait as it carried troops to Normandy. One of the soldiers, Tom Cribb, of 92nd LAA, recalled how fierce fires quickly engulfed the vessel and the warning about wearing helmets while jumping overboard was forgotten by some:
' ... in the end we were told to abandon ship. I decided to go down by one of the ropes, because it was quite a long drop from the side of the ship down.
'Some of the men had done that and what they had forgotten was that with your steel helmet on and the strap coming up under your chin, if you hit the water with any force, it could come up and break your neck. There were already one or two bodies floating around. So we threw our helmets away.'
These soldiers were possibly wearing the newer 'turtle' style helmet, but the effect of the impact appears to have been equally as deadly.

 

Having spent the day in Archives at the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders museum before going to see the film yesterday I have to say Harry Styles' Scottish accent was terrible

 

Are you suggesting that I drugged my wife's popcorn?

 

Just saw it. Overall verdict: not 'arf bad. Here are some initial impressions of various sorts.

1. The kid at the beginning seems to run from the perimeter in a town (Dunkirk itself?) just a few hundred yards to the beach. The perimeter was not that close until the very end.
2. Didn't care at all for the kid or the other one he met up with. They had thrown their weapons away, lost or run away from their units, didn't seem to make any effort to find those units. Then they try to sneak on a hospital ship. I wouldn't have wanted a pair of ratbags like that in my outfit. Sorry, but after fifty years of watching them in the movies I am sick to death of anti-heroes.
3. Branagh was good. If he keeps on like this he might turn into the new Jack Hawkins.
4. I saw some rifles which either weren't SMLEs or were simply mock-ups. Shame shame. I saw only one Bren in the hands of the troops.
5. Nolan was quite proud of the fact that he avoided CGI. I approve of that on the whole, but a little bit here and there would have helped the authenticity. It would have helped with the the rifles, with some of the buildings which looked too modern to my eye, and very definitely with the modern warships.
6. I thought the portrayal of the French was pretty fair. It shows some of them manning the perimeter and fighting well (quite true) and also that some were getting the short end of the stick when it came to the evacuation.
7. I would have liked to see some of the real commanders--Ramsay, Gort, Brooke, Adam, Alex, Abrial, Tennant. If they hadn't done their jobs so well none of the troops would have gotten off at all.
8. Good to see the RAF there, of course, even if the one pilot did have a dream flight. (How many did he shoot down before he ran out of fuel and bullets?) And yes, I think that was Sir Mike as the fighter controller. He sounded very Churchillian, actually.
9. That bit about the Germans bombing clearly marked hospital ships was true. We had a veteran here whose dad saw that, and it made him absolutely hate the Germans. I know how he felt.
10. Did the RN really allow nursing sisters on the ships sailing to Dunkirk? I can't have any regard for an officer who allowed a woman to go into an absolute hell like that.
11. One thing this picture does convey very well is the many nasty ways men can die in combat. Getting struck by a projectile is bad enough, but at least it's usually a quick death. Drowning and burning are slower and worse. The film also brings home the terror of being under air attack, the near-helplessness of it. Speaking of which, I saw NO ack-ack coming from the beaches at all. I know there were army AA units there and I would have presumed they were belting out rounds as fast as they could go.
12. One thing this picture underlined for me was the importance of discipline and command in crisis. My God, those clods stuck in that trawler were just pathetic. Not a non-com in the bunch that I could see, I couldn't help but think that they deserved to get the chop. Contrast that with the REs, who had a Lance Corporal with a brain and a job to do. The naval officers all seemed to have kept a grip, and so did the army officer in the rowboat. When things fall apart, you stick to leaders like that and to your unit too. An army without leaders and discipline is a mob.

 

First, I don't know if that jacket was his or if he just got it off that body we saw him burying at the beginning. In any case, even before May 1940 some men were already being shoved into strange regiments no matter where they came from. This was certainly true in 50th Div and I presume was the case in others as well.

 

You're getting your soldiers mixed up - I don't know how to do the fancy spoiler hiding thing so.... (Edit - I do now! Thanks Owen)


SPOILER AHEAD

Spoiler: Spoilers ahead

It's the French soldier who steals the uniform from the dead bloke at the start not Harry Styles' character. The 5th and 6th Argylls were involved in Dunkirk so it is possible that Harry Styles is meant to be part of one of those battalions. However, in 1940 most of the Argylls would've been drawn from the traditional recruiting grounds of west and central Scotland - hence my joke about Harry's accent. Overall I thought he did a pretty good job acting wise. Later in the war of course, recruits were sent to whatever unit needed them most.

Other thoughts about the film...

Overall I liked it but wanted to like it more. It didn't have the same visceral impact as Saving Prvate Ryan but I did read that Nolan was trying to avoid the "war porn" tendency that SPR ushered in. What it did do very well was build up tension. The sound design was excellent - the scream of diving Stukas was terrifying, the whack of bullets punching through steel, the floor shaking (literally in the imax cinema I saw it in) impact of explosions were all very effective. The non linear narrative also worked well for the most part especially as the different strands started to come together. There were even a couple of "oh shit" moments that had me properly gripping the arms of the seat such as the moment I realised the burning Heinkel was going to crash into the oil the soldiers were swimming through.

What sort of detracted from the overall experience was a couple of cheesy moments - when the little ship's arrive and everyone cheered for example felt a bit false. I'm not a Dunkirk expert by any stretch but since joining the forum and reading up on it at bit I thought that particular myth had been largely debunked with the majority of men being rescued by RN destroyers.

A lot has been made of Nolan eschewing the use of cgi but I did spot the famous wreck of the Adroit in one scene so there was maybe a little bit. I was impressed with the seemingly non-cgi ships sinking and do wonder how he pulled that off without computers. Oh, I know nowt about the Royal Navy but all the big ships looked really modern apart from the hospital ship. Spotted quite a few modern buildings in the background also which could've easily have been covered by an old school matte painting if Nolan didn't want to do digital.

I was also momentarily taken out of the film when I spotted the truck with the controversial upside down Union flag which first appeared in a behind the scenes photo way back at the start of this thread. Luckily it was too blurry to make out which made the whole thing a tempest in a teapot

The "magic Spitfires" - I liked Michael Caine's vocal cameo as one of the pilots and thought the air combat scenes were well shot but the inexhaustible ammo supply in Tom Harry's guns did take a bit of major belief suspension. The scene where his gliding spitfire was apparently able to shoot down a diving Ju87 (cue more cheering) was the other cheesy moment that detracted from the overall film. Ironically, the rest of the extended glide didn't bother me so much - remember his section has taken place over the space of an hour so while it feels like he's been gliding forever it is actually only a few moments in "real time" - cinematically it was nicely shot and I liked the blurry Germans taking Hardy prisoner at the end (only slight blot being the obviously missing engine in his burning plane). I thought the scene at the end with the newspaper article about the "hero" teenager was a very subtle point about the necessity of the myth about the evacuation as the crowds cheered the returning soldiers who appeared bewildered by the reception (Styles' character thinking the blind man is too ashamed to look at them for example) the despair in defeat ("Wars are not won by evacuations.") giving way to defiance as Tom Hardy is led away ("we shall never surrender")

Now that I've got over my WW2 geek viewing experience I think I need to go see it again and just watch it a piece of entertainment

 

Ta!

 

Spoiler


What type of weapon and ammunition fired through the metal hull of the trawler

 

Spoiler: Weapons

its not made clear - the first few shots seem to be from a rifle then a machine gun. I wouldn't think an MP38/40 with its 9mm rounds would be able to penetrate steel at a distance so maybe an MG34? I'm not an expert so of course it could all be Hollywood make believe but from a cinematic standpoint it was very effective

 

Mrs Researchingreg and I have just seen this film at the Odeon IMAX at Greenwich yesterday. The format made the film really vivid. We thought it was really good, even if there were some clean uniforms and too modern Railway Carriage upholstery, which is minor compared to the story. My wife's father was at Dunkirk and she was really upset by the action depicted, and said she did not realise how bad it was, although he had told her a good friend of his was killed right next to him by a bomb. The film brought it home how bad it was for the service men involved.

I recommend seeing it.

 

Going to see it again tonight - Just saying

 

Never saw that coming.

 

thats nul points then

 

Cheers Owen, That's you and vP with diametrically opposed recommendations then. I do have custom-made earplugs from work and am looking for an excuse to sit in a cinema with a battle bowler though (Note the one-piece woven MeCo webbing and khaki green No.3 helmet, something that the film-makers couldn't be arsed to get right).

 

I watched it on a normal screen last night and it's far better on a IMAX.

 

Ps Think I'll be going back to Manchester to watch in on a 70mm IMAX screen again in a couple of weeks

 

Drew, would you go back for a third time if it showed troops jumping off of boats and running ashore in Normandy ? Is it the subject or the film experience which is attracting you ? A film which is solely about a small part of the evacuation and gives no context to 'Dynamo' is pretty much missing the point for me, before it even starts.