By Eric Gasa
The battle of Dunkirk was hardly one to begin with. It was a miracle decided by hours, a near calamity in sight of home, a retreat that may have foolhardily saved the war. In history books, the evacuation of Dunkirk is little more than a tidy little paragraph; a footnote in time but its impact cannot be understated.
Operation Dynamo lasted little more than a week but saved the lives of over 400,000 Allied soldiers trapped on the shores of France. It’s within this brief and under-looked facet of the war that director Christopher Nolan expands a weeklong rescue into a telling, intimate statement of innocence, war, and humanity’s undying will to survive.
Dunkirk’s opening scenes are serene yet surreal. A group of British soldiers appear on a deathly quiet and abandoned French street. They skulk around looking for water, smokes, or any signs of hope or life. A light breeze carries a flurry of German pamphlets onto the soldiers.
A beleaguered grunt reads the scrap: “WE SURROUND YOU,” it says, “Surrender + Survive!”
Emboldened arrows point to the Allies last vestige of hope at Dunkirk like pitchforks. The year is 1940 and the German advance has the Allies’ backs up against the wall.
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