Das Boot (1981) dir. Wolfgang Peterson
Starring: Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann, Hubertus Bengsch, Martin Semmelrogge

****

By Alan Bacchus

A landmark in international cinema, a Hollywood-style war film created outside the US and Britain, and a heroic German film about Nazis, Das Boot was conceived primarily as an action film with a message. Wolfgang Peterson’s strong directorial style and deft abilities to juggle intimate moments of character with intense action are the reasons this film caught the attention of Hollywood producers, received a stateside theatrical release, was nominated for several Oscars (including Best Director) and became a success.

Some spotty production deficiencies aside, Das Boot still looks and sounds great. It’s an intense war film, which arguably tops all submarine films produced by Hollywood over the years.

The new Sony Pictures Blu-ray release features both the original theatrical cut (149 minutes) and the 1997-released director’s cut (209 minutes). I chose to watch and review the film based on the theatrical edition, which is usually the version to stick with. The shorter running time results in a more intense experience, one that’s meant for the big screen and is the reason why the film garnered the amount of attention it did back in its day. At 209 minutes Das Boot is still a fine film, but it requires a much more significant investment of time for the same emotional reaction.

Peterson puts us in the viewpoint of Lt. Werner, a war correspondent assigned to cover the missions of U-96 in October 1941, specifically its charismatic Captain (Jürgen Prochnow). The opening scenes in the German nightclub before the crew is shipped out for battle are key to establishing Peterson’s stand on Nazism. Watch the sullen reactions of Prochnow and his other crew mates to the drunken Nazi oaf mocking Churchill. Here we see the crew as soldiers caught up in the winds of war, not genocidal Nazi tyrants. With the audience on the side of Peterson’s characters, it’s not difficult to invest in their survival.

Once in the boat and on their journey, it’s a taut thrill ride. Peterson moves us quickly from one set piece to another. The thrill of victories in the Atlantic using their ingenuity to take down a number of Allied ships and the third act setbacks, which result in the flooring of the boat at over 200 ft, provide a miraculously energetic finale. The crew virtually rises from the dead and returns home in one piece.

Peterson takes time to show us the horrors of battle and the deep concern his characters have for their opposing combatants. At one point, after the first Allied ship is destroyed, we see the soldiers on fire leaping into the ocean with no rescue in sight. The German crew witnesses this, and given their apparent unease, Peterson once again reminds us these are working class soldiers – ordinary men like you and me.

The celebrated production values still look astonishing, specifically Jost Vacano’s superlative camera moves through the tight belly of the sub. Somehow, Peterson is able to push his camera through the tightest of spaces in long takes and through the tiny portal holes between sections of the boat as his characters run from end to end. These unbroken camera moves effectively ratchet up the intensity and the claustrophobia of their confined environment. At the same time, I'd be remiss if I didn't cringe at some of the lacklustre exterior process shots and some of Klaus Doldinger’s synthesized score. But then again, it was 1981, and just about every movie sounded like this.

The tragic and ironic denouement, which has the U-Boat and crew attacked from the air during the reverie of their return, is a curious way to end the film. But it’s wholly necessary to keep the film in the context of history and punish the soldiers, however unjustly, for the future and past crimes of their country. For this and all the other reasons cited above, Das Boot will always be a great film.

Das Boot is available on Blu-ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

The Neverending Story (1984) dir. Wolfgang Petersen
Starring: Barrett Oliver, Noah Hathaway, Thomas Hill, Tami Stronach, Gerald McRaney

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

With the DVD/Blu-Ray release of ‘Where The Wild Things Are’, which took direct influence from the 80’s era of creature fantasy films, Warner Bros has reissued Wolfgang Petersen’s semi-classic creature feature ‘The Neverending Story’ - an entirely German production, though shot in English, headed by Wolfgang Petersen, his first film since his breakthrough ‘Das Boot’.

Though based on a German novel relatively unknown in North America, it’s still a familiar set-up in the realm of fantasy. A young boy Bastian, whose mother recently died, lives a sad life with his father, ill-equipped to raise a boy on his own. Add to that the constant harassment by a trio of childhood bullies, means the only thing left for Bastian to fall upon is his imagination and love for stories. After being chased away by the bullies Bastian finds himself in a book store where he meets a kindly old curmudgeon who gives him a magical book to read entitled ‘The Neverending Story’.

As Bastian reads the story to himself we get to see the actions of the book’s heroes and villains play out in his imaginative brain. But as the story unfolds and intensifies Bastian gradually discovers he, himself, is part of the story and can affect the lives of the characters he’s reading about.

Bastian reads about the troubles afoot in the fantastical world of Fantasia, the force of evil called ‘the Nothing’ is growing like a plague on the land. Its saviour comes in the form of warrior boy Atreyu who is sent off on a mythical, Lord of the Rings-like journey to save the world from the Nothing.

If this summary sounds so very non-specific and fuzzy, so it is when watching the film. The film suffers most from its non-antagonist and imprecise needs and desires. Other than a black wolf which appears in two brief scenes the baddie in this story is a vague entity described as the ‘absence’ of good, that can only be described an entity as opposed to a person of flesh and blood. And so we’re never quite sure what the rules of this world are and what exactly Atreyu needs to do in order to save the world.

But even in 'Lord of the Rings', the machinations of the ring journey was tenuous at best, and really just an underdeveloped maguffin, yet the search for a ring manages to sustain a couple thousand book pages, and 9 hours on film. In this case, Petersen substitutes narrative comprehensiveness with a strong cinematic epic quality.

Conceptually the story within a story as dreamt up and realized by Petersen, is a magnificent fantasy world. Petersen uses the top notch effects of the day - physical make-up effects, scale miniatures, elaborate puppetry, matte photography, blue screen technology and optical effects – to create creatures and landscapes as magical as anything produced in the 80’s. While the effects are not completely seamless at all times (that flying dog looks a little wonky at times), the organic methodology is refreshing and can result in imagery just as realistic as today’s best CG. And under the Blu-Ray treatment, these visuals are stunning, and one of the best 80’s Blu-Ray upgrades I’ve seen.

And then there’s the famous theme song written by the film’s composer Giorgio Moroder which book ends the film. Not having heard the song for 25-odd years, with today’s ears, its a wunderbar synth-pop anthem, and elevates the film – at least for us children of the 80’s – to high levels of nostalgia bliss.

‘The Neverending Story’ is available on Blu-Ray from Warner Home Video.