"Wars Are Not Won By Evacuations"

Rating: Null/10 (27 December 2017)

One of the realizations of Winston Churchill noted in this film is that "wars are not won by evacuations." The evacuation of Dunkirk in response to the overwhelming German invasion of northern Europe in May, 1940, led to the successful evacuation of more than 330,000 allied soldiers. As indicated at the start of the film, the traditional way of looking at Dunkirk was as a "miracle."
As a war film, the conceptual approach to the Dunkirk evacuation is apparent in the three-pronged visual choices of (a) land, (b) air, and (c) sea. The film proceeds to alternate scenes in the these three spheres to demonstrate the evacuation as it unfolds through courageous British figure pilots, civilian pilots of small ships, and the combined forces of the allied navy and army on the land.
This film experience falls short of expectations as a historical film. There is no attempt to place the narrative in context of what actually happened at Dunkirk. Beyond the heroic evacuation effort, the true miracle was that the German armed forces did not press the matter to thwart the escape. It would have been easy to concentrate German army and air forces to prevent the evacuation. That did not occur because of one of the biggest blunders of World War II in the poor judgment of Adolf Hitler, who hesitated at this moment and, against the advice of his generals, allowed the successful evacuation to occur.
"Dunkirk" is clearly intended as a "feel good" patriotic film. The harrowing experience of this unique situation is dramatically evoked as the film abruptly shifts from the "mole" (the beach redoubt) to the sea (the mad dash to Dover) to the air (the handful of German fighter pilots strafing the shore and the ships.) In the closing credits, the film is dedicated to "all those whose lives were impacted by the events at Dunkirk." But the filmmakers do not seem to realize that virtually everyone alive on the planet today falls in that category, due to the stupidity of Hitler.