Dunkirk: A Heroic Effort Amidst Emphatic Silence
Ever since our world achieved universal peace once again on the historical day of September 2nd, 1945, historians, survivors, and film directors alike have put their talents together to create monumental artifacts in order to retell famous stories of destruction caused by the Second World War. Although there are many films regarding heroic stamina that occurred within the horrific years of 1939 and 1945 that make up the war film genre, a miraculous story concerning an evacuation of over 340,000 trapped Allied soldiers off of the beaches of Dunkirk, France is often an unreported tale in both the film industry and history classes.
With its theatrical release being in the summer of 2017, heavily
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The characters in Dunkirk are brought to life by an incredibly strong cast, one even more so since each character has a very few number of lines to express himself. Throughout the film, soldiers and Allied citizens alike learn more about the meaning of survival everyday, and, in turn, adapt and change themselves in a way that will eventually bring their mother country to victory. Additionally, companionships are made between characters, with the first being between a young British soldier named Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) and French soldier Gibson (Aneurin Barnard) on the Dunkirk beach. Not a single word is spoken between the two, but both understand that they must put their efforts together in a better chance of survival and continue to support each other throughout the film until their paths eventually separate. Although there is some script work to support the storyline, with such a lack of dialogue, it is crucial for the actors to portray everything that their character is feeling through body language and facial expression, and those acting in Dunkirk have an incredible hold on this challenge. Director Christopher Nolan definitely took a risk in limiting the amount of spoken language in this film, but the amount of raw expression through body language seems to make the reactions and feelings of on-screen characters less ‘scripted’, and quite literally so in terms of