Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Dunkirk

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    #51
    And <hat tip> for the nod to Michael Caine.

    Comment


      #52
      Originally posted by Guy Profumo View Post
      Yep.

      My uncle was evacuated out of Cherbourg in the months and weeks following Dunkirk.

      He did something catastrophic to his leg, and had to continue walking through northern France to be able to embark - he was subsequently invalided out of his guard's regiment, and subsequently went into the catering corps.
      Interesting. That's your uncle, Nick's relative and my 97-year-old father who were all evacuated from Cherbourg, from this thread alone.

      My old man was in the Signals, incidentally. Too much to expect that they might have known one of the others, I guess.
      Last edited by Nocturnal Submission; 30-07-2017, 20:48.

      Comment


        #53
        I saw Dunkerque last night and must admit to having been moved significantly from my expectations of hostility to it. Those expectations came from a) the myth stuff that NickSTFU has covered on the thread and b) the trailer, which I had seen far too ften (at least weekly since it was 1st scheduled for release- I go to the flicks a lot). I had begun to heckle 'nearly half of them already were 'home.' When the strapline came on screen.

        a) was compounded by the fact that b) appeared highly unlikely to challenge it.

        Add to that Into stella was a pile of sentimental shite.

        So [mild spoilers follow]

        I was quite taken with the subtleties of Nolan's representation of events: the undercurrents of racism towards the French. the fact the French troops still fighting send the 1st Tommy running home, by implication to run away from a fight. the fact that the squaddie played by the pop star thinks they're gonna get rotten tomatoed for failure while his mate reads out the Churchill speech and (best of all perhaps) that Mr. Dawson's son does a mini version of Churchill's propaganda-but-for-everyone's-good stunt with the newspaper story. because the reality was he was killed by his own side, by an officer who'd lost the plot...

        Less subtly: Branagh being used for exposition- how the fuck did he know any of that standing on the mole? The fact that Dawson sneaks away before the navy commandeer his boat...but then NONE of the flotilla appear to be staffed by navy types! The end of the film was over the top. I was wondering when the sequel of of Hardy escaping from Colditz is coming.

        I think above all that what it did was make the experience very real and immersive, and that's what i remember about some of the best WW2 fiction i read, as i began to get away from the Victor/Commando comics view of the war in my teens- Irwin Shaw, Heinrich Böll etc create powerful universal human drama out of these situations and the feral behaviour to survive of some of the key characters in this get somewhere near that power.

        Comment


          #54
          Originally posted by Nocturnal Submission View Post
          Interesting. That's your uncle, Nick's relative and my 97-year-old father who were all evacuated from Cherbourg, from this thread alone.

          My old man was in the Signals, incidentally. Too much to expect that they might have known one of the others, I guess.
          Sid was a dispatch rider in the Signals.

          To cut a very long story short, I ended up going with Sid to France in '01 where we visited some of the places he operated in and around.

          The most poignant was the trip to Saint-Nazaire and the Lancasteria memorial. Sid and two French soldiers he teamed up with were so desperate to get away they started rowing out to the ship an an attempted to get picked up. They had a front row seat of the bombing so to speak. Close enough for the blast to make Sid deaf in one ear.

          His other memory is of being sent to various places to deliver orders etc, only to find them either empty of British troops, or full of Germans.

          That, and using a Michelin map to get around and being issued a revolver with 6 rounds and never being shown how to use it.

          Desperate times.

          Comment


            #55
            Small world.

            What was Sid's surname? My old man's memory isn't the best these days but long-term is probably better than short-term and he may remember the names of some of his old comrades.

            He doesn't really talk too much about the war and I don't press him for information. I know a handful of his amusing or interesting anecdotes (paralysed by locally-distilled hooch in North Africa; wandering around Amsterdam just after the Germans had left, trying to find his uncle and aunt; facing off with Soviet troops in Berlin after the war) but other than the vaguest of ideas about where he was in any given year, that's about it. I don't even know what he did. He was a telegraphist, I think, but I've no real idea what that actually entailed.

            Comment


              #56
              Originally posted by Nocturnal Submission View Post
              Small world.

              What was Sid's surname? .
              Mann.

              Sid remained in the Signals despite being deaf in one ear. He served in HQ units in East Africa and Italy after France.

              Comment


                #57
                Originally posted by Logan Mountstuart View Post

                The jokes about "cheese eating surrender monkeys" are perhaps one of the more damning indictments of British chutzpah , regarding both world wars.
                Er, as far as I was aware that phrase is a recent, American (and possibly satirical) invention. While there is certainly a tendency towards French-baiting in British culture it's the Italians who get accused of cowardice/surrender when crude national stereotypes are invoked.

                As for the bigger picture (literally as I saw it at the BFI IMAX), 'Dunkirk' is a bloody masterpiece. I echo all of the positive comments above but, to be honest, want to see the film again to properly process all of it. I actually didn't catch the ultimate fate of one character but will ask about that below to avoid spoilers.

                I'll admit to losing it when the flotilla of small ships appeared too. Being from a Merchant Navy family (and with a grandfather who served on the Murmansk convoys - that's another story that could be revisited in film, though I'm sure I saw one old movie about it a long time ago) the shot of all the Red Ensigns appearing pushed me over the edge to tears after flinching, clenching and gasping through the previous couple of hours.


                ***************SPOLER BELOW*********************












                Did Aneurin Barnard's French character die in the sinking trawler? I don't think I saw him after that but the final scenes were even more chaotic than the rest of the film.
                Last edited by Ray de Galles; 07-08-2017, 10:44.

                Comment


                  #58
                  ANSWER TO SPOILER QUESTION

                  ********



                  Yes. He's the one still trying to plug the holes who doesn't make it to the steps in time. I lost track of him told and had to ask a friend who'd already seen it.

                  Comment


                    #59
                    Yes - echoing Ray's experience. I had to will myself to breathe at times, such was the gripping tension. And Hans Zimmer's score increases the claustrophobic qualities - it is very much reminiscent of a silent movie. Dialogue (what there is of it) was secondary to the visuals and music, which is a good job because I couldn't make out what most of the actors were saying. I read an interview with Nolan and he said that 'Nimrod' is an underlying theme to all of the score, so that when it eventually turns up, he has ensured that we are all pointing in the right direction. I may watch it again this week.

                    Comment


                      #60
                      Originally posted by NickSTFU View Post
                      Mann.

                      Sid remained in the Signals despite being deaf in one ear. He served in HQ units in East Africa and Italy after France.
                      Thanks. I'll run the name past my old man when I speak to him next.

                      He was in Italy too.

                      Comment


                        #61
                        Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                        ANSWER TO SPOILER QUESTION

                        ********



                        Yes. He's the one still trying to plug the holes who doesn't make it to the steps in time. I lost track of him told and had to ask a friend who'd already seen it.
                        ADDITION TO ANSWER TO SPOILER QUESTION

                        **************************************









                        Yes, I missed exactly what happened when I was watching the film at the time, but according to Wiki he ("Gibson") got tangled up in a chain which was why he was unable to get out.

                        Comment


                          #62
                          I just assumed he left it too late, perhaps because he didn't understand what everyone else was saying or didn't want to be seen giving up / being a coward.

                          Comment


                            #63
                            I thought the French soldier couldn't understand the cry of abandon ship and was effectively left plugging the holes himself. It was the Styles character, the one who wanted him thrown out before, who was going to leave him but realised he couldn't comprehend English so he went back and gave him a tug on the shoulder to get a move on. I am not sure you see the chains that he gets caught on but you do hear a sound like he is tangled.

                            Comment


                              #64
                              I thought it was quite a good film, though obviously not one you'd want to claim as having enjoyed. It also prompts you to want to know more about the evacuation, and I think the lack of historical information was maybe intentional in that respect. No evil Nazis - good decision, the film didn't need them. Some scenes/dialogue a bit hokey. War is hell, we all know that, and that's what comes across, though I suspect it's even more hellish than this, much more terrifying and claustrophobic and brutal and graphic, but there's a limit to how far a film-maker can go before the audience is going look away. Thinking of the spilled guts in Catch 22.

                              Actually, that's all I can remember about Catch 22, but it's over 30 years since I saw it. Was it any good?

                              Comment


                                #65
                                I finally saw this a couple of days ago, while they're still showing it on the 70mm projector in my local cinema. I'm really not sure if that made a difference or not.

                                Anyway, I thought it was a good film, but not a great one. I was very happy that it wasn't a horribly bloated 150-minuter, and was actually well edited. And the sense of claustrophobia was very well conveyed. But it was a little too "Britain, Rah rah rah" for my tastes. Sure, it's nice to have some balance against the usual US jingoism in war films, but it really played heavily on national myth - not just the small boats thing, but the stoicism in the face of adversity, everyone patiently waiting in queues, everyone always drinking tea, isn't the sound of a Rolls Royce Merlin just the greatest thing... it hit a whole lot of cliches.

                                And the kinds of cliches that would be parrotted by the less savoury parts of Brexit Britain who want nothing to do with those lawless, coffee drinking foreigners who don't abide by rules and social conventions, and don't have proper, blue passports.

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X