Dunkirk: We Can't Even Name True Fascism

By David Wrolson

Dunkirk: We Can’t Even Name True Fascism

I mentioned in a previous essay that I hate the movie Dunkirk to the core of my soul and with the heat of a thousand suns. Dunkirk almost feels demonic to me. The movie is perfectly aligned to fit modern sensibilities.

Less than a minute into the movie; the following word crawl appeared on the screen.

“The Enemy have driven the British and French armies to the sea. Trapped at Dunkirk they await their fate.”

“The Enemy”

My hatred for the movie started from that point. I could instantly see where the filmmakers were going. The other team was going to be a nameless, faceless “Enemy” and not Nazis. For all the current talk of standing against Fascism and so forth, we can’t even name true Fascism when we were battling for our lives against it.

The movie starts with a squad of soldiers in a deserted town that come under machine gun fire and are almost completely wiped out except for the main character in the movie.

We are then dropped with no context on a beach full of confused, frightened men. However, the real Dunkirk men had context.

They had just fought a bitter, fighting retreat and they had fought as well as they could under the circumstances. They, and countless others who didn’t make it to Dunkirk, had cost the Germans 156,000 casualties. Among those casualties, they had killed 27,000 Germans. The movie takes that honor away from them.

Throughout the movie, the British soldiers call the other team “The Enemy.” In real life, they called him “Hun, Jerry or Kraut.” In the Far East, they called him “Jap” or “Nip.” The movie dehumanizes the British soldier by having him call the enemy, “The Enemy.” To me, it is one of the ugliest features of the movie.

I think calling the other team “The Enemy” also does a disservice to the German soldier as well. He was caught up in service to a monstrous regime, but he was a flesh and blood man and it is important to remember that.

Ad-Hoc Units

We see the main character hiding on the pier to try sneak on a ship. He displays no courage or selflessness. His actions in the movie mirror what we in modern times expect that the typical behavior of a soldier is because it is what we see ourselves doing.

He is separated from his unit and appears to be alone. However, throughout history, ad-hoc units of soldiers separated from their units during confusing retreats or defeats or even advances fought well and they earned their place in Valhalla.

War Is Hell

Every scene of the movie seems geared to one objective. That objective is to show that “War is Hell.” That seemed to be all the filmmaker was after. In that aspect, once again, the movie is perfectly aligned with modern sensibilities. We think there is nothing worse than war.

Au contraire, there are many things worse than war. The Soviet Gulags were worse than war. The loss of the buffalo to the Cheyenne was worse than war. I fear that the outcome of the rapid move to artificial intelligence will be worse than war.

“The Enemy Could Be Right Over There”

Midway through the movie, our “hero” (loosely speaking) is with a group of soldiers who find a beached boat that might be usable at high tide. As the soldiers enter the boat they glance toward some sand dunes and one says “The enemy could be right over there.”

However, they just hide themselves in the bottom of the boat and post no sentries. Knowing what the movie is: it would be a bridge too far to expect them to scout the dunes, but they could have at least posted a sentry. This scene is the burning focus of my hatred for the movie.

So who are these Germans of whom you speak?

The only reference to Germans in the movie that I am aware of are when the Dutch boat captain comes back to his boat and the soldiers grab him and ask him if he is German and why he left the boat. He says “In case the Germans come back.”

Wow, completely out of the blue we hear of Germans. Given the lack of historical literacy among our youth I am not certain that very many know that “The Enemy” at Dunkirk was the Germans.

A Part of Something Larger Than Yourself

The only ones in the movie who are shown as a part of something larger than themselves are the crew of the small boat who are on their way to Dunkirk to rescue soldiers.

However, even this storyline is irretrievably marred by the inclusion of the shell-shocked soldier picked up in the channel who fights against going back to Dunkirk to pick up his comrades.

Once again, courage and self-sacrifice find no place in this movie. The film makers can’t begin to grasp that wounded soldiers throughout time have fought to get back to their comrades.

The shell-shocked soldier storyline is just another way of stripping honor from soldiers. It fits with our modern sensibilities of every one as a victim and that is how we see ourselves acting in that position.

One of the things I hate the most about the times we find ourselves living in is that we have stripped the honor from soldiers and, instead, we view them as victims.