That, and as you said, EliRoom8, that claustrophobic fear...men on the long pier or topside on a vessel with no place to go, no place to hide as the Nazi planes came in to bomb and strafe. Your only defense was to make yourself as small as you could, hopefully behind the flesh and blood of another man who you hoped would stop a round or shrapnel before it got to you.
“I thought what Dunkirk brilliantly captured was: the absolute in the gut desperation sentiment of “Will I make it out of here? Will I make it on a boat, or be one of the people left behind to be taken prisoner or be killed by the enemy?”
And did it without a horrendous number of “blood and guts” scenes.
Actual acting and storytelling carried the movie.
I don’t want to think about what a gorefest it would have been with Americans writing, directing and producing.