The Boat

Das Boot is one of the most emotionally involving movies I have ever seen. The characters are developed richly, without those awkward moments in movies when you realize that the director is doing so. You sympathize with the crew, and FEEL their plight as they struggle, cramped in a rickety U-boat against the odds. At times the movie grows slow and drawn out, but that is intentional- to make you feel like you are trapped in an underwater coffin with nothing to do, no where to go. The directing is great, the sound is fabulous! I've never heard faint noises tell a story like this before.

on modern "boats" life isn't easy- but compared to the living hell that the German U-Boats were, modern submariners have nothing to complain about. People in certain professions don't like to watch movies about those professions (Doctors and Nurses shy away from hospital dramas, for example). Submarine sailors are different. We love to watch every submarine movie ever made, from "Run Silent, Run Deep" and "Destination: Tokyo" to "The Hunt For Red October", "Crimson Tide" and "U-571". Why? Because we can always use a good laugh. For those in the know, submarine movies are usually absolutely hilarious. Except this one. After being in the Navy for four years, serving with around 350 different men, and being acquainted with a further 200-300, all of them submarine sailors, I think that I can state with absolute certainty that this film is the ONLY submarine movie that ALL submariners take seriously. And that is the highest praise a movie like this can possibly get.

Das Boot (1981)

Widely considered the most impressive submarine movie ever made, I'll go so far as to say it's easily the most accurate that I've seen. The action scenes, the sense of doom, the eerie quiet and then explosive depth charges, the grime and the crowded conditions, all of this is palpable.

But more impressive, I think, is how the movie works as a German movie about Germans in a war where the Germans were painted as evil. American movies to this day still glorify and make heroic their roles in WWII (unlike the willingness, at times, to show the problems of Americans involved in Viet Nam, say), especially in the European side. But in movie after movie, the German film industry has confronted the real problem of being aggressors, and of being under the Nazi sway. "Das Boot" is typical, and key. The captain goes so far as to openly make fun of the German propaganda coming in on their radio. It isn't just that war is bad, but that the Nazis are bad.

Nevertheless, there they are, and they have a job to do, and they're going to do it well. So a small group of men in a small underwater tin can try to survive the boredom as much as the British, who come very close to getting them several times. It's a great movie, one of the best at capturing the feeling of being there.

What is less impressive, at times, is the more ordinary character development that seems inevitable in a movie this long--2 ½ to 4 hours depending on the version you have, I saw the long one, the director's cut. I think the acting is superb, and so it's easy to go along with the conversations and interactions, but they aren't always compelling in themselves, more just creating some space before the next conflict arises. Maybe, in some honest sense, this is exactly how it would have been. Life for most people is pretty ordinary.

But this movie is not. Or it makes what is ordinary in war--the nostalgic to the profound and deadly--believable, and not simply big and dramatic, which it also is.

For full German effect, I suggest seeing it with the original German language track on and subtitles if you need them, though I tested the dubbed version in English and it's really well done. I also suggest, if you have doubts about such an involved war movie, trying to find the older, shorter release. The visuals are not enhanced, but some of the character development sections are left out and I don't think you'll miss them. Then, of course, if you want the whole kit and caboodle, try to find the 5 hour version released in sections for British and German television.

Das Boot is not just a great war film: it's a great film period. Maybe it is true that epic themes make the greatest novels and films. Here is a movie that explores heroism, duty, patriotism, hope, fear and the futility of war--all grand themes--explored in the confined, and collapsing, spaces of a German u-boat.

I saw this film when I was a freshman in college during a weekend that I later dubbed my "depressing movie festival." (The Wall and Apocalypse Now were the other weekend "entries.") Of these films, it was Das Boot that haunted me--when I laid down at night, I saw Jurgen Proctow's pained blue eyes. When I woke in the morning, I felt as if I were escaping through the hatch of the submarine. I could not shake the images, and now some fifteen years later, I still remember how completely meaningless the movie made everything seem, and the nihilistic message stayed with me for a long, long time. How few films are there which affect the viewers on this level. To say this film is "powerful" seems so weak a description.

Part of the "power" of the film comes, I think, from a certain restraint in the direction. So often, films which aspire to move the audience quickly fall into melodrama, over-acting, and overblown images. Too much. These often succeed in the immediate response (usually crying) but fail to impact the viewer on anything more than a surface level. Here, it is the small moments which fill the screen. Everywhere, all around is War, but for these men as we witness them, war does not begin with a capital "W". It is reality, not a grand concept. The director lets the story shock and horrify the audience, not by forcing it, but by letting the story just tell itself. Drama, tension and resolution occur naturally in Das Boot, which contributes to the very real impact of the film.

Story is a 10, direction is a 10, acting is a 10 and the cinematography is a 10. One of the all-time greatest films.

My late father served in the Royal Navy in WWII and was torpedoed by a U Boat, so when I sat with him to watch this in 1986, I fully expected him to be filled with hatred for them. Nothing could have been further from the truth. He told me that seamen, even those on opposite sides, share something unique. He told me that his ship picked up some U Boat survivors from a ramming. They were just ordinary men doing the bidding of their masters, just like he was. They were put down at Scapa Flow as POW's after being at sea for 5 weeks. Many of them had formed friendships with the Royal Navy men, including my father. He formed a friendship with a submariner called Gotz Stiffel and they remained friends until Gotz passed away. My father attended his funeral in Duisburg and he was welcomed as an old friend by the survivors of that U Boat sinking. My father said that film bought tears to his eyes. They were just ordinary men caught up in extraordinary times and this film captured everything from fear to boredom and relief. He said, and I utterly agreed with him this was just about the finest anti-war film ever made.