Weekend at Dunkirk

Dunkirk, June 1 and 2, 1940: Sergent Julien Maillat is one of a group of scattered French soldiers waiting on the beach at Dunkirk with the men of the British Expeditionary Force to be taken across the Channel to England. The German Luftwaffe is constantly flying missions that claim many victims. The British initially only evacuate their own men; after Maillat finally manages to board a ship with the help of a sympathetic British officer, it is hit by German bombs. Maillat manages to get back ashore. He ventures back into the town, which is already under German artillery fire and is also being bombed from the air. In the hail of bombs, he meets the courageous young Jeanne, who convinces herself that her parents' house will survive the inferno of war if she can hold out in it. Maillat rescues her from two comrades who have broken into the house and are about to rape her. He has no choice but to shoot them. This is not the only thing that burdens him from then on; the thought that he has left the young woman alone afterwards is also unbearable.