L'affondamento del Laconia - 12 settembre 1942

Just happen to watch this movie about 2 months ago. I really enjoyed it, I didn't think for one second it was anti American. In the movie the scene people are referring to they were given direct orders to bomb, they reported what they saw. But in general I thought it was a great TV movie. People take stuff so serious. Just relax and take in the show. I'm starting to really enjoy international movies, to me just more depth. It's nice to see at war time what went on behind the scenes in other countries. Germany could have easily said screw those people but they showed compassion. Just think the world was at War, they stopped what they were doing and helped the enemy.

This documentary - drama was a great thing to show to the main public. The idea of being noble and humane in the midst of a war is quite unusual and it should have been stressed out more in order to make humans aware in such a way. This kind of situations are extraordinary, and they happen only occasionally, under special circumstances. I hope more movies would be made in such honorable manners to encourage people of this planet to be just like this or better. The media has this power, and I wish it was used more in this way! Thank you for making this movie, I'd rate it min. 7,5 if I was asked. And all this nationality preferences and it's discredits are just what the war is all about, I sincerely hope we soon become what we pretend to be. Big respect for the captain and I hope we aspire to such deeds!

Complete nonsense about this being anti-American.... the bombing of the submarine while it was clearly displaying a huge Red Cross emblem is not fiction... it happened. If there's anything anti-anybody in the story, then it's also anti-British and anti-Polish while it's clearly pro-German and Italian. However, the Polish guards looking after Italians DID open fire on them while the ship was sinking and they may have been assisted by some British servicemen. Why was there a cowardly British father, a totally unscrupled Irishman, the usual 'oaf' of a British army officer... all standard make-believe that Hollywood has churned out all the time, so it's fair play to portray the Americans as trigger-happy and wet-behind-the-ears... the USA was in its first year of the war, only nine months after Pearl Harbor.

A couple of trivial 'goofs'.... the U-156 was, in reality, a Type XIC Uboat - a better-armed submarine, used for long range patrols, and a lot bigger than the Type VIIC used - but we can't blame anybody for that.... there are no Type XI boats around, while there are a couple of sea-going Type VIIs. A little more attention to detail could have been paid to the uniforms of the British seamen.... and the 'wardrobe' department (if there was one) lost the plot completely with the Sierra Leone personnel.

One other reviewer seems to show disgust at the 'lack of discipline' of the Uboat crew.... oh really? The reviewer has served on submarines? I have - and I found it 100% accurate. Long patrols in a tin-can with 52 other men, under the pressure of war... all kinds of things go on. Do not confuse a lack of reverence for a lack of discipline.

This film is a throwback to the halcyon days a decade ago when brexit was still unheard of. As of late 2021, with anti-European and especially anti-German sentiment running strong in the UK and with a government in Westminster whose default response to domestic policy problems is stoking cross-channel tensions, something like this would no longer be produced, and if it were it would not be broadcast, at least not in Britain. The picture is on the whole nicely made and well-acted. Franka Potente is excellent, as usual, as is Lindsay Duncan who plays a snooty aristocrat - a type of role that suits her perfectly (watch her in the HBO miniseries 'Rome'). Ken Duken as U-boat commander Hartenstein and Andrew Buchan as third lieutenant of the Laconia are very good, too. Still, I have a number of reservations about the picture.

1. It is too long. I don't need non-stop explosions and action, but this film could easily have been condensed to a good one-and-a-half hours without detracting from the story in any way.

2. The way the character of Dönitz has been drawn. Dönitz was an 150% Nazi: 'Hitlerjunge Quex', as he was called. He may have condoned Hartenstein's actions, but he did so not for humanitarian reasons but because they provided valuable propaganda material. And he certainly did not have any moral reservations about the murderous order he is giving towards the end of the film (not so save any further victims of U-boat attacks); on the contrary, that order was entirely in keeping with his ideological approach to warfare. The film is whitewashing him.

3. A strange thing I noticed is that the subtitles used for the German characters often do not match what they are actually saying. In most cases they offer relatively free translations, which is of course fine, but at least occasionally they deviate quite widely. I wonder why - but I am not interested strongly enough to re-watch the picture in order to try to find a pattern. Still, strange it is.

In my opinion as a combat vet, this was a brilliant insight into the contradictions of war. There is brutality; there is compassion; there are heroes and there are cowards. Every war reveals humanity's best and even more its worst.

As for the movie, it was a powerful, well acted, portrayal of a real event of World War II. As much as I hate Hitler's Nazis, there were still men and women who managed to remain human. The faults of the English, who used a ship to transport both the privileged (esp. The women and children) and the Italian POWS, was not only reckless but inhumane.

I thank the British and German filmmakers, actors and production crews would told this story with award-winning skill and talent.