Dunkirk - The Movie

[Sigmapolis]

I agree with a lot of your points although I am no expert on Nolan's films. I have seen the ones you mention but prefer this one and Interstellar to the others.

Totally agree about random and unpredictable artillery. Most of my dad's platoon died from "friendly" artillery. I think often with artillery, the troops of either side were not even part of the equation.

I'm not sure about people being killed at a distance. I suppose that stacks up as being the majority of the casualties, but I think it may depend on the war and the location. My dad remembered the face of the man who shot him and believed he killed him in return. He credits the guys who got him off the mountain he was on for retrieving him before the Japanese could bayonet him, which is what they did to the injured enemy. He spent a lot of time in jungle combat, which was often hand to hand. I have no idea what the numbers were for casualties, but in places like Guadalcanal and New Guinea, starvation, malaria, dengue, hepatitis, and dysentery took a toll. I think WW II may have been the first war where the enemy killed more than disease, but I am not sure what the numbers would be if you looked only at the war in the Pacific. This movie quietly did a nice job of conveying hunger and thirst.

There has been quite a bit of buzz about Tom Hardy and his faceless roles, so was expecting him. What a job he did.

I do not remember the exact quote, but Dan Carlin's Great War series discussed a British general saying something like this about the men in the trenches...

"The men are brave. They are not afraid to die for their country. What they are afraid of is pain, mutilation, and dismemberment -- being wounded by or blown partially or completely to pieces by the German guns, or left to die in No Man's Land with their guts hanging out or an arm and a leg missing." Dunkirk gave some small hint of that, and it was bad enough.

That is terrifying. Not only would artillery of such nature be impossible to predict and defend yourself from, but its likely effects... wounds from flying shrapnel, dismemberment, or being vaporized entirely by a direct hit... kind of leaves a lump in my stomach. No seeing it coming -- just BOOM and it is all over very quickly, if you are lucky, or you bleed to death or lose a few limbs if not. I can only imagine what battles like Verdun were like and, while the World War has a reputation more for tanks and aircraft, artillery stilled played a huge and determining factor in the land campaigns, and it was no less terrifying in 1944 than it was in 1916.

I have heard the same statistic you give about various "crowd diseases" being more deadly than the battle itself at various points. I think I heard it as something like the American Civil War was the point where the "lines crossed" between the two. All my respect to somebody who fought in the New Guinea campaign or on Guadalcanal -- small confrontations in terms of the number of men actually involved compared to the Eastern Front, but in some of the most inhospitable conditions on the planet already without another side trying to kill you.

 

[carvers4math]

I didn't know ahead of time Hardy was in it, but he had his mask off in his first scene and I knew it was him right away. Surprised to hear you guys didn't recognize that it was him.

I couldn't figure out who Harry Styles (One Direction - Boy Band) was though, I think I heard Nolan didn't know he was a singer until after filming. I guess not knowing what he looked like made that more difficult for me/him.

I recognized Harry Styles from the eyes right away, but not Michael Caine, and I'm old lol.

 

[BillyClone]

Wonderful movie. My dad never watched war movies because he felt that they glorified war, and his four years in the war in the Pacific were anything but glorious. I feel like he would have watched this one. My husband asked after the movie about Tommy grabbing the pamphlets and this was pretty obvious to me from my dad's description of some of the less glorious aspects of war. I felt the hunger and the thirst when that one poor guy drown still holding the cup they gave him with tea.

Will definitely go see it again. Wish I could ask my dad more questions. He didn't ever really discuss his experience until about six months before he died, but what came across was hunger, despair, confusion, terror, and camaraderie. Nobody gives a speech before sacrifice. The dearth of dialog was refreshing and realistic.

Had similar experiences with my father - fought in the South Pacific and never talked about it too much. He would laugh at the "Hollywood"-ized films and all the nonsense that went into them - speeches, heroic actions, macho-ism (guys pulling pins out of hand grenades with their teeth, etc). Changed his tone after watching The Thin Red Line. Said it was too close to reality and wasn't interested in seeing another war movie again. Never saw Saving Private Ryan.

Opened up a little bit more in his later years. He had started to attend reunions with his old Marine Corps buddies and Mom thought it made him a little more comfortable to share his battlefield experiences. Those that I heard were pretty grim. He loved to talk about the silly things that happened at camp and between the battles, but stories about the battles themselves were few and far between.