Question: Robbie's soldier friend (I think his name was Nettle) was so calm and compassionate with him. He said that the hiding place was in reality the beach cottage and he protects Robbie from the angry soldiers. Did he do that because he saw how sick he is and probably knew, deep inside, that Robbie will not survive the night until the evacuation, and wanted to give him a peaceful end? Why does he take Robbie's letters and pictures with him?
Question: After a fellow soldier throws his boots, Robbie walks ahead to retrieve them and discovers a large group of murdered children in, I presume, school or church uniforms. Is this moment based on a real historical event of WWII?
Chosen answer: Not as such. The only systematic massacre of civilians in the Dunkirk campaign was in the Flemish village of Vingkt, where the German 377th Infantry Regiment had fought a fierce battle against the Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais. On 27/28 May 1940, the Germans took revenge on the civilian population and shot some 40 men and boys in the village, including eight elderly men who had sheltered in a convent's cellars. They argued that anyone found in a building the Chasseurs had used was liable for execution. The film exaggerates for dramatic effect - dead schoolboys are more poignant than dead old men - but there is a core of truth in the story.
Question: The scene with Briony and the French soldier made absolutely no sense to me. They seem to go back and forth from knowing each other well, to having just met. What exactly am I missing?
Answer: Briony was just told by her superior to hold the French soldier's hand because he was dying. The French soldier was delirious and most likely confused her with another English girl whom he knew in the past. Since he was dying, Briony decided to play along and pretended that she was that girl. While this exchange is happening, though, Briony experiences something else as well. She sees the soldier as being like Robbie which is why I think she has such a strong reaction to him. When she tells the soldier "I love you" it is like her speaking to Robbie.
Question: The scene in the factory in which the lady washes Robbie's feet, was this real? I know that the woman represents his mother. But does he confuse this unknown woman with his mother, or is the whole scene just a illusion?
Answer: It is an hallucination, most likely brought on from fever due to his wound becoming infected.
Question: In the scene in which Cecelia and Robbie meet in the cafe, when Cecelia says she has to be back at the hospital in thirty minutes, Robbie makes an anguished comment that is extremely difficult to understand. What is the comment that he makes?
Answer: He says "Oh god, that's..." He's upset at the little time they have together.
Question: Possible spoiler: is Robbie's fatal septicemia caused by the wound in his chest or the general lousy hygienic conditions during their march to the beach and on the beach itself?
Answer: Robbie's death is caused by the wound as it caused the septicemia. So yes.
Question: How does Briony know when and especially how Robbie died, because he was obviously left behind in the abandoned factory on the beach and never came "home."
Answer: Though not seen in the movie, Corporal Nettle would have taken one of Robbie's dog tags with him and submitted it along with a report of Robbie's final observed disposition and location, upon Nettle's return to England-as military personnel are trained to do. The Red Cross or other wartime aid organization would have recovered Robbie's remains along with his remaining ID tag, and eventually repatriated them.as these aid organizations did for all sides of the conflict. Military and aid organization info on Robbie's disposition, etc. would have been provided to Robbie's family, and kept within wartime casualty records, either of which Briony might gain access.
Question: Two questions: 1. Robbie joins the army to be released from prison. Does that mean he would be a "free man" if he had returned from the war? 2. Wouldn't Robbie, as a healthy young man, be conscripted into the army anyway sooner or later?
Answer: Remember that Robbie wanted to become a doctor, and had he been able to achieve that dream he most likely would not have been drafted into the army as a combatant.
Answer: 1. Yes he'd be free once the war has ended or if he's injured and hospitalized. Also, the release form might have specified the duration of service. 2. Yes he would have, but he was already in prison before the war was imminent.
Answer: I think he realizes that Robbie most likely won't make it. He takes the letters so that he can get them back to his loved ones. He probably knows that there is a last goodbye to someone (his girl/his mother) in them. And, if nothing else, even if his body doesn't make it back to them, they have a piece of him to cherish.