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I've got kind of an unusual complaint about the movie in that I think it actually needed more CGI. I think the overall problem with it is that the cinematography exposes some pretty poor action choreography, especially with the aerial combat. It's just really telling that they are flying 75-year-old planes and are deathly afraid of crashing them. Each combat sequence basically involves the planes gently swooping around, then some white smoke, and finally the stricken plane gently glides into the Channel. That felt in complete contrast to the rest of the film which mostly consisted of sudden violence interrupting supposed peace and security. The CGI Stukas fit into the rest of the movie better, because they could do more with them.
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Jul 26, 2017 05:06
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Bottom Liner posted:I didn't really even consider it, but I did really enjoy the pacing and palette of the aerial stuff as a break from the harsh and brutal beach scenes. I took it as more of the early stages of aerial combat were pretty simple and calm comparatively. The editing of the movie was so loving good that I didn't even notice even though you're 100% right. It's weird because I liked it at first, and I think flying one of those single seat WW2 fighters most have been one of the greatest feelings in the world... Up until the moment that your wing gets shot off sending you into an unrecoverable spin and crashing to your death. The movie captures the joy, but I don't think it really pulls off the terror very well.
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Jul 26, 2017 06:33
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As I understand it, ejecting out of a fighter of that era was not an easy thing to do. So if you had enough control of the plane to land it, that was the much better choice regardless of where you actually ended up landing.
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Jul 26, 2017 23:49
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I think the sparseness of the shots is a deliberate film-making decision. In the war zone there are a lot of wide-angle shots that are sparsely populated which I believe are meant to highlight the feelings of desperation and isolation among the men trying to escape. It doesn't matter how many men are on the beach, they are all surrounded and isolated and literally just waiting for death or capture by the Germans. However, from the time when they are rescued until they get back to England, the shots are much narrower and much more populated. The soldiers are no longer alone, but surrounded by civilians and other soldiers.
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Jul 28, 2017 05:31
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Steve2911 posted:What was the intention of the last shot? I read it as scepticism over British patriotism, that Churchill was twisting a humiliating defeat into a flag waving 'God save the King' moment. I think this is what makes Dunkirk a pretty fascinating subject for a film, especially if you wanted to make an anti-war film. The modern, American public perception of Churchill is of this great wartime leader, but I don't really think that squares with the historical record. He decisively lost an election before the war was even over. Pre-war Churchill was known as an ardent British imperialist and was a staunch anti-Communist. The cost of British "victory" in the war though was the communist takeover of Eastern Europe and the collapse of the British Empire. I think there is the same kind of dichotomy with the evacuation at Dunkirk. It's a successful military operation, set against the backdrop of a crushing military defeat. It's a morale boosting speech, meant to inspire the people to keep fighting, but it's filled with a bunch of empty promises.
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Jul 29, 2017 21:02
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oxford_town posted:That's not just the "American" perception, the mainstream British perception is that he was one of the greatest leaders of the country. The widely-held view is that he was a brilliant wartime leader but not so in peacetime, which excuses his defeat to Attlee. (This also allowed Churchill, at the time, to deflect the blame for the loss of India & the breakup of the Empire onto Attlee). I think the interesting thing about that view is that there was a widely ignored Gallup poll in 1943 that showed the liberals with a 10 point advantage. That was a time period before we had weekly tracking polls or anything, but that is an interesting snapshot, and partly why I think the post-war mythology doesn't really reflect what people thought at the time. As far as the anti-war message, I think the movie presents war as this thing that you just try to survive. And then narrowly defines bravery not as how many people you kill, but how many other people you help survive by your actions. So to the people it is a great victory. You survived and that's enough. The lofty idealism of the speech doesn't jibe at all with the basic motivations of the people.
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Jul 31, 2017 02:54
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monster on a stick posted:I'd like to read the argument that losing a 300K army wouldn't have made much of a difference. While Germany prepared for a cross-channel invasion (who wouldn't?) it was a long shot at best. The necessary prerequisites would have been the Luftwaffe destroying the RAF, then destroying the Royal Navy, and still having enough planes left over to support the invasion and subsequent ground campaign. Meanwhile, the time between the loss of the British Army at Dunkirk and the actual German invasion would have been more than enough to train up and equip a replacement army, at least to defend the beaches. In the long-term it would be a real problem for Britain, but in terms of defending the British isles from invasion, the Germans were never even able to establish air superiority.
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Aug 3, 2017 08:00
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