The Paradoxical Truths of “Dunkirk”
By Megan Drown
Grade for the Film: C
Christopher Nolan’s 2017 film Dunkirk is a visually spectacular rendition of the 1940 evacuation of British and French troops from the French port city of Dunkirk. Desperately clinging to survival at all costs as their frontline is mercilessly pushed to the coast of France, British soldiers queue up to flee in an ethereal and disturbing scene of empty determination. Enemy fire rains down amongst the soldiers as men hurriedly attempt to board a ship destined for England. In part, the film’s historicity is pristine in presenting certain paradoxes of war, such as heroism and integrity versus self-preservation and brutishness. However, the film is a disconcertedly whitewashed history of the evacuation of Dunkirk in that it never harkens back to the participation of colonial units on this particular front and their integral role in providing operational support to the British and the French. Needless to say, that the film’s historicity is tinged by its lack of credibility and selectiveness in representing only white soldiers; nevertheless, it is an impressive film filled with paradoxical truths about war.
Nolan artfully depicts the situational urgency as scenes weave an anxiety-inducing score into ephemeral and speechless interactions between soldiers. As German fighter jets swoop down to shell the scores of soldiers lined up on the beach awaiting a murky fate, self-preservation and instinctual behavior overpower the soldiers who respond emotionlessly to the deaths of their comrades. The audience is immediately invoked with a sense of panic as it follows the storylines of Tommy and Gibson on land attempting to leave the French coast, George, Peter, and Mr. Dawson at sea sailing towards the French coast to rescue the soldiers, and Collins in the air as he attempts to fend off enemy aircraft. The film is truncated by each of these storylines, representing the three elements that need come together by the end of the film to save the forlorn soldiers. Though Nolan is criticized for not developing more personal accounts of the characters whom the film follows, obscurity of the characters’ biographical contexts is intentional. The lack of personal development is replaced by a mobility of setting which reifies the audience’s experience and places them within the discord sewn by war and political bureaucracy.
Two paradoxical truths emerge throughout Nolan’s temporal depiction of war. First, there is the story of Mr. Dawson who embodies this almost mythical patriotic Brit who eagerly steps up to the call of duty. Mr. Dawson’s steady and cool manner serve him, and his frantic shipmates, well as he heroically and methodically rescues soldiers from almost sure death. His integrity is amenable and his courage, awe-inspiring, as he is unrelenting in the face of tragedy and crisis. However, although he fulfills his duty in rescuing and evacuating soldiers from the English Strait and the French coast, his moral convictions come at a cost. While Mr. Dawson is steering the boat, George is fatally injured by a frantic soldier who is experiencing PTSD. He receives a blow to his head, and although Peter tends to him, he ends up dying from the head trauma. Mr. Dawson’s patriotic and heroic zeal leads him to save dozens of men at the price of a preventable and mundane casualty. Ultimately, Mr. Dawson’s tacit recognition of George’s death by a slight nod of the head reveal a stalwart commitment to his mission and acceptance of inexplicable tragedy as a cost of duty.
In contrast, there is the story involving Tommy, Gibson, who is a French soldier, and Alex. In an attempt to escape the coast and survive the chaos, the three young men, along with many other soldiers, hole up in an abandoned boat waiting for the tide to come in so they can float on their merry way back on home. As they wait quietly at the bottom of the ship for the tide to come in, as not to reveal themselves to German snipers, the boat is repeatedly shot at, and it begins filling with water. The naval officer on board iterates that the weight of the ship must decrease in order to keep it from sinking. In an act of self-preservation and shameless brutishness, Alex threatens Gibson, whom he suspects to be a “Gerry”, to get off the boat or be shot. Though, the weight of one soldier as compared to the thirty or so that were on board would not make much of a difference, Alex quickly denigrates into a pitiless soldier who quickly will sacrifice the life of the “other” on board to save his own skin. The scene is a poignant revelation of the pitfalls of the human spirit in times of war and chaos, and it makes one wonder – what of the colonial soldiers who were on the beach that day fighting along British soldiers? Would Alex have attempted to force colonial soldiers off board, as well? Would the British officers who decided which men were eligible to be rescued (the British but not the French) have excluded colonial soldiers from boarding the ships back to England?
Megan Drown is a senior majoring in International Studies and Economics.