Dunkirk!

[mercalia]

Has any one seen it?

according to the BBC it is the definitive version ? true ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05c15h3?intc_type=singletheme&intc_location=5live&intc_campaign=5liveinshort&intc_linkname=clip_yourdefinitivewarfilm_contentcard1

The guy also reckons that Saving Private Ryan is the same for DD Day - that makes me think he is talking through his **** The Americans may like to think they were the major player in that event ( they werent )

[Cunobelin]

My apologies if this is "off topic", but...

You cannot beat the real thing?

My MiL is in her 90s and we went down to Ramsgate for the "Little Ships"

Watching her face as she was allowed to board the "New Britanic was absolutely moving

She had worked with the Red Cross and as a young girl served sandwiches to the soldiers as they came back, and she particularly remebers that "Little Ship" and being told to "avert her eyes" as some of the men were not "properly dressed".

I am sure that these films are superb, but to me the point that is missed is that if you take the short time that is left to attend these events and speak to those that experienced these events, then you will learn far more than watching someone's interpretation of those experiences

[pete75]

My late aunt Alice probably knew more about what it really meant than most. Married at 19 to her sweetheart Bob on Christmas day 1939. Unusual day for a wedding but he had just one full day of leave and had to rejoin his battalion on Boxing day. Embarked for France in April 1940. Blown up on the Dunkirk beach 2nd June 1940. No known grave.
Alice was married at 19 and a widow before she was 20. Bob was 23.

[francovendee]

Yes, saw it a couple of weeks ago, original sound track with French subtitles.

Very good filming and realistic battle scenes. One scene where they are sheltering in a stranded boat and get machine gunned was very scary.

I was put off by some of the script, too 'stiff upper lip.

[thirdcrank]

My parents were married in April 1940 and their first house overlooked several railway mainlines near the canal in Armley, West Leeds. Whenever Dunkirk was mentioned, my mother used to recall the unusual and initially unexplained number of trains passing, which at times was an almost continuous stream. She particularly remembered it during the night, but as she worked during the day, that's not surprising. There was, of course, a total embargo on the news and it was only some time later that it emerged that such vast numbers of soldiers were being moved from the Channel ports to camps in Scotland and the North of England.

[Boyd]

Very good filming and realistic battle scenes.
I was put off by some of the script, too 'stiff upper lip.

I always wonder about statements like that? How do you know it was realistic?

[pliptrot]

I haven't seen it yet but I understand that the BEF were exhausted and malnourished by the time they got to the channel, and were beginning to show signs of emaciation in some cases. It is said that the cast of the film look quite different......

[mjr]

Has any one seen it?

Yep. We cycled through it in May. The cycle track from the port is utterly unhelpful, misleading you onto an autoroute feeder road instead of the quieter coast roads, but the town itself actually has some fairly good cycle tracks and "sauf velos" plates on almost every one-way street sign.

Oh wait, what were you talking about?

[RickH]

The Americans may like to think they were the major player in that event ( they werent )

I think in this country we tend to think of the Normandy Landings as a valiant British effort with a little help from others which is equally far from the truth.

The main troop numbers initially were approximately 73,000 US troops & 61,000 British plus 21,000 others, mainly Canadians, so a roughly equal split between the US & UK+Canada.

Any D-Day accounts will have different troops depending on where they are set. Utah & Omaha Beaches would have been pretty much 100% US troops whereas Gold, Juno & Sword would have been largely British & Canadians. I don't know enough about operations to know if they kept largely separate or did things jointly to a greater extent later on.

Although the USA can be criticised for being "late to the party" I don't think we could have survived without them in the latter stages of WW2. I've read that it was the US pushing for the Normandy landings with Churchill wanting to concentrate efforts on attacking though southern Europe & leave crossing the Channel until later.

The Soviet contribution in keeping the German military pulled in 2 directions is, I think, also under-appreciated at this side of Europe (even if the final outcome at the end of the war was not what we would have liked). But that is probably another discussion...

I haven't seen it yet but I understand that the BEF were exhausted and malnourished by the time they got to the channel, and were beginning to show signs of emaciation in some cases. It is said that the cast of the film look quite different......

I've not yet seen it either. It depends how important starving the cast (or extensive make up & prosthetics &/or CGI - both expensive) would be to telling the story, would it add much apart from a few realism brownie points? And how many people would actually notice either way?

[mercalia]

The Americans may like to think they were the major player in that event ( they werent )

I think in this country we tend to think of the Normandy Landings as a valiant British effort with a little help from others which is equally far from the truth.

The main troop numbers initially were approximately 73,000 US troops & 61,000 British plus 21,000 others, mainly Canadians, so a roughly equal split between the US & UK+Canada.

Any D-Day accounts will have different troops depending on where they are set. Utah & Omaha Beaches would have been pretty much 100% US troops whereas Gold, Juno & Sword would have been largely British & Canadians. I don't know enough about operations to know if they kept largely separate or did things jointly to a greater extent later on.

Although the USA can be criticised for being "late to the party" I don't think we could have survived without them in the latter stages of WW2. I've read that it was the US pushing for the Normandy landings with Churchill wanting to concentrate efforts on attacking though southern Europe & leave crossing the Channel until later.

The Soviet contribution in keeping the German military pulled in 2 directions is, I think, also under-appreciated at this side of Europe (even if the final outcome at the end of the war was not what we would have liked). But that is probably another discussion...

I haven't seen it yet but I understand that the BEF were exhausted and malnourished by the time they got to the channel, and were beginning to show signs of emaciation in some cases. It is said that the cast of the film look quite different......

I've not yet seen it either. It depends how important starving the cast (or extensive make up & prosthetics &/or CGI - both expensive) would be to telling the story, would it add much apart from a few realism brownie points? And how many people would actually notice either way?

well also a matter of acting quality- go and compare the 2 versions of "Flight of the Phoenix" the early one, 1965, with James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch and the later 2004 one with Dennis Quaid, Miranda Otto, Giovanni Ribisi - The newer one was just a romp over the weekend with a McDonalds down the road? the early 1965 one you could see they were dehydrated and exhausted and on their last legs etc - matter of actors & acting quality?

[Ben@Forest]

I haven't seen it yet but I understand that the BEF were exhausted and malnourished by the time they got to the channel, and were beginning to show signs of emaciation in some cases. It is said that the cast of the film look quite different......

I've not yet seen it either. It depends how important starving the cast (or extensive make up & prosthetics &/or CGI - both expensive) would be to telling the story, would it add much apart from a few realism brownie points? And how many people would actually notice either way?

From what I've read the condition of troops varied considerably by the time they reached Dunkirk, some were obviously shattered by battle, and may have suffered strafing by the Luftwaffe on the beaches. Other units were in relatively good order and were fit enough to play football on the beaches while waiting for evacuation. It should be remembered not every soldier's principal job is to be an infantryman or tankie, the only Dunkirk veteran I ever (knowingly) met was a cook. He could have been involved in battle - but he wasn't.

The other thing that is often not remembered is that the majority of troops were evacuated directly from the mole (or pier) by big ships - the famous little ships 'only' transported or evacuated around a third of all the troops - either to bigger ships or all the way across the Channel.

[pliptrot]

Heroism however it is described. The fear that all must have felt in retreat and waiting for evacuation is unimaginable, thank God. That is what the EU was (is?) about, and look what we've done there.......(sorry; churlish point).

[Ben@Forest]

Heroism however it is described. The fear that all must have felt in retreat and waiting for evacuation is unimaginable, thank God. That is what the EU was (is?) about, and look what we've done there.......(sorry; churlish point).

The EU managed to do nothing when war was on its doorstep twenty years ago.

https://www.washingtonreport.me/1993-april-may/why-europe-failed-to-halt-the-genocide-in-bosnia.html

But it's not really for a topic on Dunkirk so I'll not comment anymore on the EU on this thread.

[Ben@Forest]

Just seen it. Definitely not the 'definitive' story on Dunkirk, and I'm not sure it's even as good as the 1958 film version. It is a representation of threads which were supposed to be individual stories of those involved at Dunkirk but they are all a bit too far fetched.

(Spoiler alert) The 'young squaddie' thread includes a French soldier masquerading as an English Tommy, the 'small ships' thread of course focuses on a rogue small ship pilot who of course does his own thing rather then those which were crewed or partially crewed or organised by the RN or RNVR, and the 'Spitfire flight' thread seems to include an endless supply of ammunition, shooting down enough enemy aircraft in one sortie that would almost qualify the pilot as an ace and the pilot shooting down a Stuka dive bomber when his own aircraft had already run out of fuel.

There is also no historical context. The operation was controlled from Dover Castle whereas the film makes it seem as if a naval commander and a harassed colonel were in charge of the whole thing. Overall it's not a bad film, and it avoids being a shoot 'em up gorefest but a real history? No.

[Cyril Haearn]

I love reading film reviews, often a film gets conflicting opinions

The only thing is to go and see it and decide oneself

Not sure whether it is best to leave reading the reviews until one has seen the film, then maybe watch it again

A good film is worth seeing twice I think

Like dad's army (2016) for ww2

- what's your name?
- don't tell him, Pike! said Captain Mainwaring