Compare And Contrast Dunkirk And The Darkest Hour

Dunkirk and The Darkest Hour are both films that center around the evacuation at Dunkirk, but from two different perspectives. The Darkest Hour begins with the selection of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister, replacing Neville Chamberlain. It focuses around Churchill’s decisions about World War II, especially those regarding the evacuation of Dunkirk, and ends with the launching of Operation Dynamo. Dunkirk is a retelling of the evacuation of Dunkirk from three different military perspectives: land, air, and sea, each with its own story as each occurs at different times throughout the evacuation. Eventually, all three stories tie in together as the soliders return home and are celebrated as heroes, but not without the horrors of war instilled

within them.
Dunkirk and Darkest Hour depict political and military leaders in different lights. Darkest Hour is full of dialogue and explores some of the political aspects of Britain’s government. Political leaders are shown to be somewhat rational, but can be influenced by their own motives.

For example, Churchill is criticized by many political leaders for lying to the public about the success of the British military in the war, a decision which may have been made in the interest of the government despite its false basis. Furthermore, Churchill’s election is shown not at the result of his potential as a good leader, but rather because he was the only option that the opposition party would accept: many people agreed to him becoming Prime Minister not because they believed he would succeed, but because it was in the interests of their political careers. Military leaders are largely irrelevant, mainly seen as pawns who can be directed to fulfill the purpose of the war. In contrast, in Dunkirk, political leaders are never mentioned aside from Churchill’s Operation Dynamo. The perspective of the battlefield portrays these political leaders as distant, and

they are only represented through their decisions. Instead, the army acts as a mass, with each individual acting according to order to some extent, but primarily for their own survival. The soldiers themselves show an indifference, if not resentment, towards poltical leaders, as they are the ones who designate military assests. A few military leaders are shown, all of whom are both rational and selfless. They put their soldiers before themselves and speak calmly about the oncoming soldiers. Tension is also seen between military leaders and political leaders, as military leaders desire more materials to save their troops, while the political leaders, isolated from the battlefield and unaffected directly by the war, wish to save the assets for further battles.
World War II is shown from a political perspective in Darkest Hour, and a military perspective in Dunkirk.

Darkest Hour shows a top down view of the war, with many scenes in a war room in which Churchill makes decisions featuring a large map with colored dots and arrows. One of the primary conflicts surrounding the war is the tension between striking a peace treaty and refusing to give in to Hitler’s demands. As a political move, Churchill’s opponents attempt to get him to admit that he will not even attempt to make peace with Hitler, while Churchill tries to defend staying at war. Near the end of the movie, Churchill interacts with the British citizenry directly, asking them whether or not they would like to stay at peace or go to war- the citizens strongly support defending their land. Churchill’s reasoning for staying at war is both a nationalistic sense of pride and the fear that Hitler will not stop his conquest despite a peace treaty: “You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth!” as Churchill states. War, in this sense, is depicted in an idealistic way: fought for the defense of the homeland. Losses, while tragic, are in the form of numbers, and citizens still have the support of the war. In Dunkirk, the horrors of war are actualized. Compared to the citizens’ overwhelming will to fight in Darkest Hour, the soldiers in Dunkirk are tired of the war and are simply trying to survive. Although it seems as if they would like to be able to fight back, the

hopelessness that the soldiers face is overwhelming, and the purpose of the war is questioned as a whole. The only citizens we see are a few who have traveled to Dunkirk alone in an attempt to rescue some solders, and even they begin to become unsure of the benefit of the war after meeting a soldier with PTSD who refuses to go back to Dunkirk. The sense of duty that is so strong in Darkest Hour exists, but it is much weaker in the face of the realities of war. The German soldiers, although always right around the corner, are only shown directly once. Hitler, or any other axis leader, is never mentioned, while he is a driving force behind the war in Darkest Hour. There is no sense of duty or will to fight, as the Germans are seen as some form of a natural disaster. Death, grief, and pain take their hold on soldiers, and one soldier even committs suicide by simply walking into the ocean and never returning. The proud and willfull energy that Darkest Hour ends with crumbles under the things that the soliders must actually face in battle, and Churchill’s strong-willed resistance is brought into question when a peace treaty is considered as an alternative to the destruction occuring throughout Dunkirk.