Summary
Commander Bolton, an admiral, and Colonel Winnant discuss what to do next, with Bolton noting how close they are to home. "What about the French?" Bolton asks, to which Winnant replies, "Publicly, Churchill's told them 'Bras dessous,'" which roughly translates to "arm in arm, leaving together," but then says that Churchill's priority is getting the British troops back. The admiral tells them that Churchill wants 30,000 men back, and "Ramsay's hoping we can give him 45."
With a look of distress on his face, Bolton notes that there are 400,000 men on the beach at Dunkirk and insists that the mole stay open "at all costs." Down below, Tommy is listening to the conversation, as Bolton notes that they are within artillery range from the west, and that if anything else sinks there, the mole will be blocked and they will be stuck. Can't we load from the beaches, the admiral asks, but Bolton insists that it's too shallow and would be impossible.
On his boat, Mr. Dawson sees a sunken ship, which George and Peter go to examine from the deck. As they get closer, they see a man sitting on top of the sunken ship and throw him a rope for him to climb aboard. The soldier jumps into the water and swims to them. George gets the nearly catatonic soldier a towel and wraps it around him as Dawson asks the soldier his name, but he does not respond.
In the air, Farrier sees Fortis Leader's plane that has crashed in the water. Collins asks if he thinks Fortis Leader got out, but Farrier does not see a parachute, and tells Collins to record his position. Then, Farrier notices that his fuel gauge is no longer working, so asks Collins to keep an eye on his fuel levels. "Shouldn't you turn back?" Collins asks, but Farrier insists that it's just an issue with the gauge and not his fuel. They continue on.
Back at the mole, Bolton looks up at the sky as German planes fly overhead, dropping bombs on the ground and exploding parts of the mole. Men scream and many are blasted off of the mole in a fiery blaze. Bolton yells for them to push the evacuation boat off, so that if it sinks it does not sink at the mole, blocking the possibility of other evacuation boats docking there.
Suddenly, Tommy spots a soldier, Alex, swimming nearby, and grabs his arm, to pull him up onto the mole. The ship hits the mole with a great creak and soldiers jump off it, fearing death. Bolton watches in dismay as the soldiers swim to safety.
On Moonstone, George asks the soldier they have picked up if he wants to come below and brings him a cup of tea. The soldier hits the cup out of his hand, frightened, and Dawson tells George, "He feels safer on deck. You would too if you'd been bombed." Suddenly, the soldier speaks up and says, "It was a U-boat," and Peter tells George to get him some more tea.
Now that they are five minutes away from Dunkirk, Farrier tells Collins that they ought to climb to 2,000 feet to avoid running into any German planes. Collins warns that that will take more fuel, but Farrier is confident that it's the right plan of action. They ascend.
Bolton notices Alex floating beneath the mole, and says that he will find him another ship. Seeing another opportunity, Tommy and Gibson submerge themselves underwater to make it look like they jumped off the sinking evacuation ship. They climb up the ladder to the deck of the mole, and get in line with Alex and the other soldiers, boarding a boat which takes them to another large ship.
As they climb onto the deck of the destroyer, Tommy, Gibson, and Alex are greeted by a nurse. Gibson peels off from the group. Below deck, soldiers have tea and some food. Tommy and Alex grab pieces of toast as Gibson stays above deck and looks at the war taking place on shore. "What's wrong with your friend?" Alex asks Tommy, and Tommy tells him that Gibson is looking for a quick way out in case the ship sinks.
On Moonstone, the soldier asks Dawson where they are going, and when he tells him Dunkirk, the soldier is indignant. "We have to go to Dunkirk first," Dawson says, as the soldier pleads with him, "I'm not going back...If we go there we'll die." Dawson advises the soldier to go lie down below deck, and Peter shows him to a bed.
"Is he a coward?" George asks Dawson and Dawson tells him that he's shell-shocked and not himself. "He may never be himself again," he adds. Peter brings the soldier some tea and closes him in to his cabin, locking the door on the way.
In the air, Collins informs Farrier that he's down to 40 gallons, before noticing a German plane about to drop a bomb on a British ship. They fly over and apprehend the German fighter. After shooting it a few times, it turns and does not end up bombing the ship, but Collins gets hit and goes down. Farrier tells Collins to bail out and assures him that he will chase the German plane.
On the destroyer, soldiers eat toast as the engine starts. Gibson is still on deck, watching soldiers in lifeboats paddling towards the vessel asking to be picked up. Suddenly, he sees a ripple in the water, a torpedo coming towards the vessel, which hits with a boom. The below deck is flooded. Gibson climbs over and opens a hatch to let his fellow soldiers out and Tommy and Alex manage to escape the sinking vessel through it.
Analysis
One element of the battle that raises the stakes and the suspense level is the fact that the soldiers at Dunkirk are so close to home yet unable to reach it. As Bolton notes, "You can practically see it from here," sighing frustratedly at the view of England in the distance. The film explores the ways that war creates unfathomable boundaries between otherwise connected places, and the tragedy of soldiers being torn away from their homes.
Making Dunkirk all the more tragic is the fact that the army can never hope to bring back as many men as they would like, a fact that is determined before they have even begun to evacuate. An admiral tells Bolton that Churchill is hoping to get 30,000 men back to England, even though there 400,000 men on the beach. We can see the tragedy of this limitation written across Bolton's face. He looks horrified as he considers all of the lives they will lose.
If the first part of the film set up the tension of war, the suspense of the unknown, the second part becomes a chaotic outbreak of discord and violence. The stiff upper lips of the commanders is challenged by the bombs that the Germans drop on the mole, and Commander Bolton must make difficult decisions in definitive moments of tension and disorder, as the mole is blown up and the soldiers whimper in fear. Actor Kenneth Branagh's expression becomes tense and frightened as he struggles to decide what his next orders will be in the wake of such immense chaos.
The film follows the events of war, the physical toll it exacts and the desperation of battle, but it also examines the psychological effects of the war. The soldier that Dawson and the boys discover is shell-shocked, and while he is able to swim from his sunken craft to the boat that rescues him, he can barely manage to speak, and stays curled in a corner above deck. When George is startled by his lack of social skills, Dawson reminds him that the soldier feels safer on deck, after the traumas he has endured.
The film is a story of survival above all else. Throughout, we see soldiers fighting against unthinkable odds to stay alive, even when there is very little hope for them. Farrier flies a plane to save his fellow soldiers even when he does not know how much fuel he has. Gibson manages to open a hatch on a sinking vessel just in time for his friends Tommy and Alex to swim out. Dawson and his young companions take their boat directly into war in order to save who they can from death. Christopher Nolan's depiction of war centers around ordinary men sacrificing a great deal in order to help others survive and survive themselves.
