Das Boot (film): Finally got around to watching this all-time gem

Let me start out by saying I was watching the director's cut, and that brings the total screen time to around 3 and a half hours which for me is honestly too long for almost any film that isn't Lord of the Rings. Hell, I'm a long-time Star Wars fan and I kind of groan about the director's cut of those films. It's just too long to be sitting somewhere watching the same thing.

That being said, Das Boot is an absolute masterpiece once you consider the time-period that it was filmed in and how limited technology was at the time. It is truly amazing that they were able to pull off the situations the U-boat finds itself in considering the technology that existed in 1981.

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I think that most people probably have a fear of drowning and therefore getting into a submarine for the sake of anything, let alone war, would be something that would absolutely terrify them. The idea of not seeing sunlight or being outside of a steel tube for months on end would be something that would push a person to their wits' end and that is exactly what this film aims to portray. The immense level of nerves that a crew member would have to possess just to be on one of these things for a couple of hours would be pretty intense. I think that the courage and willpower it would take to be on one for very long periods of time, especially when the objective of everyone around you is to send you to a watery grave would require courage on a level that almost no one possesses.

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Because of this claustrophobia impact, the film is kept tense the entire time outside of the first hour or so where it seems as though everyone is jovial and the captain keeps re-assuring everyone that there is no chance they can be sunk either by the sea or their enemies. This arrogance dies down a bit as they start to get pursued by destroyers who have sonar capabilities and seem to be able to find them pretty easily. This idea that they were going to dominate the seas goes out the window pretty quickly as a few extremely well-shot scenes of being pursued by Allied warships becomes terrifying.

The fact that this story is told from the perspective of Nazi soldiers makes the movie even more unique especially when you consider that in 1981 that the Cold War was in full swing and almost no one, including the Western Germany company that produced it, had any love for the idea of Nazism.

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The captain and crew do not experience much in the way of success because the advantage that the U-boats enjoyed towards the beginning of the war are presented as being not so great at this point in the actual WW2 story where Germany was already in the stages of losing the war in a general sense. There are points in the story where the soldiers actually break from their stoic and uncaring ways when they get up close and personal with a merchant ship they have crippled and then fire another torpedo to finish the job only to discover there are still men on it. I really enjoy that it was shown that the crew aboard the German vessel felt such regret about this that it was a turning point for them and all that they wanted to do was go home at this point. No one had much interest in continuing to kill anymore and while I cannot say for certain, this seems to be one of the points that they are trying to make in this epic film is that soldiers do not actually want to carry out their orders and cause suffering.

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The budget for the overall film was 34 million Euros in 1981 so that would have made it one of the most expensive films that had ever been made at that point in time. While the various sequences in the film aren't exactly CGI-fantastic, since actual CGI didn't exist at the time, nothing in the entire film looks fake and this includes battles between destroyers and U-boats that there is no way they could have reproduced given the time period.

I spent most of my life being very aware of the existence of this film but until yesterday I never got around to actually watching it. At 3.5 hours I admit I started skipping a few portions as crew members would argue among themselves in a way that wasn't terribly important to the progression of the overall story but I would imagine that I watched at least 2 hours and 45 minutes of the entire thing. It took me 3 sittings to finish it, but I am glad that I did.

Should I watch it?

I'll be honest and say that in order to enjoy this film you are going to have to prepare yourself to appreciate the majesty of what they were attempting to accomplish with the technology that existed over 40 years ago - which wasn't anything like what we have today. It is truly remarkable what they are able to pull off from a cinematic point of view given the very limited technological options that were available to them at the time. The performances by all of the actors is second-to-none and if an overdubbed version of this movie exists, I am sure it is terrible. Just watch the original with subtitles or it will take away from the overall experience.

Das Boot was nominated for a ton of Academy Awards but surprisingly didn't win any of them. To date it holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations a German-made film has ever received. I guess that means something. This story is also based on the memories of someone retelling actual events and in my mind that makes films even more worthwhile.