Dunkirk: how historically accurate is Christopher Nolan’s second world war battle film?
Some of the film’s characters are composites of real participants in the 1940 evacuation, while others are fictional; a French warship doubles for a British one, but is more real than a computer model would have been, director says
Director Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk is earning rave reviews for its you-are-there depiction of the Battle of Dunkirk – the heroic small-boat evacuation of British and Allied troops pinned down by German forces in northern France early in the second world war.
The success wasn’t just a miraculous victory in the war.
“Ultimately, Dunkirk was a turning point in human history,” says Nolan, who also wrote the screenplay.
Historian Joshua Levine was a consultant on the film, a story that relies heavily on action. Dialogue is sparse, and there’s even less of an explanation about what’s happening during the battle.
But just how historically accurate is Dunkirk?
