Stunned silence provides evidence of impact.

Rating: 10/10 (2 March 1999)

My humble skills as a writer lend me no assistance in capturing the trauma that one experiences while watching this movie. The best way for me to sum it up is by telling you what typical audience reaction greets the end credits - stunned silence.
It is a testament to the power of this piece of film that it leaves viewers in shocked awe of the ordeal that the WWII generation must have faced at home and in combat. The documentary-style cinematography and gritty violence draws the audience into the terror that faced every person that came ashore in Normandy that cold June morning.
As incredibly nerve-wracking as that sequence is in the film, there is a hard truth that every viewer keeps in his mind. It is this fact alone that allows us to watch in fascination as scores of men are slaughtered on the beach.
The undeniable truth is that this is make-believe.
The bullets are not real. The blood is fake. When the director called "Cut!" everyone in the scene got up and went to the buffet. So as bad as it looks on camera, we realize that it's all just a lot of masterful storytelling.
The film's triumph lies in the slowly dawning idea that grows within the audience. By the end, there is a small voice that whispers, "This is a movie, but for many it was real - and even worse than what was shown..."