The evacuation of British and Allied forces from Dunkirk in 1940 was a great patriotic moment in British history of which Americans have little knowledge. The story of Dunkirk is heroic: the British Expeditionary Force, the French First Army, and other Belgian and Dutch troops were cut off and driven to the coast where they were surrounded and subject to bombing and capture. Using navy ships and a flotilla of 650 small boats, the British managed to rescue 338,000 of the troops in just three days.

Christopher Nolan’s movieDunkirk, released on July 21st到目前为止，这部电影的票房高居榜首。它体现了诺兰电影的一些标志性特征:破碎的时间、本杰明·沃费施(Benjamin Wallfisch)不和谐而令人不安的配乐、暗色调和偶尔闪现的灯光带来的视觉美感，以及无处不在的恐惧。

As a philosopher, I was especially drawn to how the movie portrays ordinary people acting under tremendous fear. Some are glorious, some are mean-spirited, some are anxious, and many are patient.

There’s the predictable bravery of Spitfire pilots risking their fuel running out while they try to destroy German bombers for whom the men on the beach are captive targets. There are the soldiers who do not know one another but run together to try to catch an evacuating ship, perhaps for the wounded man they carry on a stretcher but perhaps also for their own escape. There are the soldiers outside the fragile protected boundaries hiding in a grounded boat that becomes target practice for the Germans, rendering it unseaworthy—but while they are trying to get it afloat quibbling about whether a Frenchman should be thrown out to lighten the load so that the British and the Dutch soldiers might have a better chance to escape.

这些人跳入海中，试图逃离他们被鱼雷击中的船，并努力逃离正在下沉的船泄漏的石油。有一群人挤在一个叫“鼹鼠”的码头上，耐心而焦虑地等待着他们希望在炸弹到来之前到达的船只。有一个被炮弹击中的士兵从海里获救，但无法平息他的恐慌。肯尼斯·布拉纳(Kenneth Branagh)饰演的博尔顿指挥官，在英国人撤离后留下来帮助法国人撤离。还有由马克·里朗斯(Mark Rylance)饰演的小船船长道森先生，他冷静而睿智，勇敢地继续努力，在德国的炸弹击中海面并在燃油燃烧的火焰中爆炸之前，拯救了一名受炮弹惊吓的士兵、一名被击落的喷火战斗机飞行员，以及被石油浸泡在海里的船员。

In Britain, stories such as the Dunkirk evacuation are fodder for those who believe self-reliance can solve any of the problems of Brexit. For example, Nigel Farage, former leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), tweeted that every young person in Britain should go watch Dunkirk.

Zoe Williams, writing inThe Guardian，他认为从这部电影中吸取的教训是错误的。她说，友谊和在坚韧的精神下一起工作的需要是这部电影所歌颂的。并非偶然的是，她还指出，敦刻尔克大撤退不到两天就超过了英国独立党为英国设定的年度移民目标。

For philosophical moviegoers in the US, the events at Dunkirk and their current political significance may seem remote in space and time. But the themes are not. As John McCain’s recent plea for cooperation about health care in the Senate reminds us, achievement of basic goods requires working together.

Dunkirk最后，人们向返回的撤离者提供了干杯和啤酒。As the realization sinks in that they will not be ridiculed for their escape but will be welcomed home, a radio voice reads from Winston Churchill’s sober “We shall fight them on the beaches”speechto the House of Commons after the evacuation. That the speech is read by an unseen voice, not Churchill himself, is yet another reminder of how it is not particular individuals alone but practical solidarity that matters “to outlive the menace of tyranny,” in Churchill’s words.