Das Boot (1981)

It is 1942 and the German submarine fleet is heavily engaged in the so called "Battle of the Atlantic" to harass and destroy English shipping. With better escorts of the Destroyer Class, however, German U-Boats have begun to take heavy losses. "Das Boot" is the story of one such U-Boat crew, with the film examining how these submariners maintained their professionalism as soldiers, attempted to accomplish impossible missions, while all the time attempting to understand and obey the ideology of the government under which they served. 

pic, terrifying, epochal war film, set during the twilight of the German successes of World War II’s sea battles, Das Boot (Eng: The Boat) is a monument to the bravery and human triumph of those sailors asked to do the unimaginable. Unlike Hollywood-ised examples of submariner conflict, such as U-571,Das Boot shows us that even the men on the German side were questioning their orders in the face of certain defeat. These guys aren’t the square-jawed Matthew MacConnaughey types; the men of the titular U-boat in question are husbands, brothers, lovers and sons – men who never once consider themselves brave or heroic, just soldiers who have a duty to their country.

Ve are all ov to var, ve iz!

Anybody who witnesses this amazing film will be astounded at just how detailed and genuine Das Boot is. Filmed over the course of two years, almost entirely within the confines of the U-boat set, which itself is to-the-last-screw accurate, Das Boot is a harrowing adventure/thriller. The story of a collection of random guys put together in a leaky, creaky seagoing craft and sent out to sink Allied ships, is relatively rudimentary. Where the film risesabove the ordinary is in its characters, how they react to the pressure (above and below) of the terror of battle, and life-and-death hide and seek.

Lt Werner (Herbert Groenmeyer) is an enthusiastic war correspondent sent to cover life on board the glorious U-boat fleet, in particular U-96, as a propaganda mission for the German War Office. The boat’s Captain (Jurgen Prochnow) sees the arrival of Werner as an unwanted distraction to the duty of the servicemen on the submarine, but accedes to the orders. As the crew departs on their next mission (after quite a boozy night at a local drinking establishment), their spirits are high and expectations large. Werner is initially excited to be on the boat with the crew, a group of sailors ranging from the experienced Chief Engineer (Klaus Wennemann), to the young steering officer Benjamin (Jean-Claude Hoffmann). However, as the boredom of waiting for battle starts to drag on, and their engagements become quite few and far between, the mood on the U-boat shifts palpably. Inevitably, tensions on board lead to violent outbursts, a few of the men going crazy, and ultimately, a lot of unresolved anger. When the engagements between warring parties does occur, the shift in mood goes from bored anger to palpable excitement, a wide-eyed hope that they can kill the enemy before they themselves are killed. Petersen highlights the tension in the air with long, sustained periods of silence between depth-charge explosions, as the Allied ships above attempt to destroy the U-boat. By the end of the film, including the heart-breaking finale, we see the end result of the strain. Of the most surprising things to come out of Das Boot, the main point is how we, in the Western World, find ourselves actually pulling for the Germans, which goes against what we’ve been brought up to do.

I tuld you ve ought to stop for food!

In the latter days of the second World War, as the German forces were slowly being forced back on land and at sea, the casualties were beginning to mount, and morale among the U-boat fleet was somewhere approximating the ocean floor. Das Boot, set during this period, takes us into a world where orders cannot be questioned (especially amongst the officers) and obeyed even if seemingly suicidal. The boat’s Captain, ably played with fierce intensity by a youthful Jurgen Prochnow, has begun to internally question the methods of his superiors. His loyalty isn’t to the Nazi cause, more the crew he commands, and while juggling his moral judgements to engage an opposition more powerful than he, must try to keep his crew safe. The film is essentially an intimate ensemble piece, with varied characters (from all walks of German life) put together in one of the Wars most pressurised situations. Emotions are stripped bare, or bottled up, to explode at critical moments, resulting in one of the screens most searing indictments on the dehumanisation of soldiers during wartime. Life and death decisions must be made, the kind of “for the good of all” ethical stuff that creates great drama. Prochnow, as the lead figure on the boat, delivers a towering performance of the Captain, an everyman trying to survive a brutal conflict. While a man of few words, his eyes betray his emotion almost every time: of all the performances I’ve seen of his on screen, this is the most affecting. Werner, initially the “narrator” of the film, and the one we see the events of the film through, tends to become less the focus and more of a background character, which is perhaps the film’s single biggest issue, leaving the focus of the films main narrative on the Captain himself. I’m not sure if this was intended, or a result of Prochnow out-acting everyone (except Wennemann, whose portrayal of the Chief Engineer is Oscar worthy, in my estimation), but it results in a non-linear dramatic arc for the viewer, as we’re unsure of whom the main focus is supposed to be.

Hanz wasn't afraid to admit it. It was he who had farted.

The rest of the crew, a mixture of youthful exuberance and haggard veterans, define their roles easily; they’ve come to be rather clichéd characters in a way, since Das Boot came out, but the realism and genuine performances from the eclectic cast embody the true nature of the film. Hubertus Bengsch, as the 1st Watch Officer, is the most overt Nazi on board, although his tenacity and virulent behaviour softens as the brutality of war takes its toll. It’s an interesting dynamic on the ship, as the officers and rest of the crew don’t seem to care much for his stiff, heel-snapping behaviour. Other crew members lament their lack of social interactivity; from lovers and girlfriends back home, to their football team losing a game, this seemingly inane banter truly highlights just how similar these men are to everyone else (including the opposing Allied solders they’ve been sent to kill) and just how futile and pathetic war actually is.

The filming of Das Boot enabled Petersen to create a sense of genuine tension on set, which ended up creating a more realistic sense of the same on film. The actors were stuck indoors for almost a year during filming, resulting in a more realistic pallor upon the final scenes of leaving the ship, beards grown and skin almost albino with lack of vitamin D. This, coupled with a highly detailed replica of the U-boat (apparently also used by Steven Spielberg to film segments of Raiders of The Lost Ark!) ensured a natural realism on the film that couldn’t be faked.

Capitan, I say ve go back for ze vimmen!

In terms of Das Boot’s technical production, by far the most unique element is the wonderful (and Oscar nominated) sound mix. Long periods of silence, punctuated by incredible explosions of sound and fury as depth charges explode nearby, as well as the eerie “ping” of the sonar, the groans of the sub under pressure as it sinks to dangerous depths; this is a film sound-scape of immense power. Coupled with Klaus Doldinger’s heroic and melancholy score (Doldinger also scored Petersen’s other German-financed film, The Neverending Story), this German language film set the benchmark for just how effective a surround sound mix could be. Speaking of language: as a film fan, I always prefer to watch the film in the language it was originally made in;Das Boot is no exception, as the English dub on the available DVD versions is a little hokey, resulting in a lower dramatic impact overall. Can I suggest watching in the original German, with subtitles, for a substantially better effect?

Vot do you mean ve are only halv vay sroo zis movie?

Regardless of your thoughts on the German perspective of the second world war, you’ll be swept up in the sheer human drama that is Das Boot. The simmering tensions and wild-eyed terror involved in underwater conflict makes for searing storytelling, a story that Wolfgang Petersen has captured so eloquently with his intrusive and pervasive camerawork. The sweat and tears of life aboard a submarine have never felt so hard earned, so real. After watching this, you’ll feel like you’ve been at sea with them all.

1981

2h 29 min

Trailer

Crimson Tide (1995)

On a US nuclear missile sub, a young first officer stages a mutiny to prevent his trigger happy captain from launching his missiles before confirming his orders to do so.

Crimson Tide is a white-knuckler with a cop-out ending. It's a thrill-a-minute ride that concludes with a whimper, like a roller-coaster that has all the drops and twists early. Make no mistake, this is a good source of early summer fun, but with a little extra imagination, it could have been a whole lot more. There seems to be a mentality in Hollywood to settle for something once it reaches a certain acceptable entertainment level. Why take a chance and "push the envelope"? Crimson Tide is a perfect example of this sort of thinking.

There's a lot happening in this film. It opens with a quick synopsis of the current political situation: Russia is in the midst of a civil war and the anti-American rebels have taken control of a nuclear base. The USS Alabama, commanded by Captain Ramsey (Gene Hackman), is ordered off the Asian coast as the "front line and the last line of defense." Since Ramsey's usual XO has appendicitis, he must chose a new right-hand man. At the top of a short list is Ron Hunter (Denzel Washington), an officer who doesn't necessarily agree with his captain's no-thought, gut reaction method of commanding. Tension builds as orders from land make it apparent that war is imminent. A Russian sub -- possibly hostile -- is sighted nearby, and the crew is ready to mutiny when a fissure develops between the two men who must co-authorize a nuclear launch.

Michael Schiffer's script (as doctored by an uncredited Quentin Tarantino) works hard to incorporate elements from the likes of The Hunt for Red October and Das Boot, weaving them into his story of mutiny on a nuclear vessel. In some ways, trying to do all these things almost overburdens Crimson Tide. So much is going on that no single element gets the screenplay's full attention.

Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman are both in top form, and their multiple confrontations are some of Crimson Tide's best moments. With these two actors going toe-to-toe, everything else fades into the background. There's little doubt that Hunter is the hero -- the guy the audience is supposed to identify with -- but he's shown to have a fault or two. And, while Ramsey is the obligatory human antagonist, he has his redeeming qualities, and his position on the to-launch-or-not-to-launch issue is not without merit.

The underwater battle scenes are marred by surprisingly poor special effects. Crimson Tide's models look like the sort of thing that could be assembled from a store-bought kit. Fortunately, these sequences don't comprise a large portion of the running time. Most of the action takes place within the boat, and these claustrophobic scenes are far more believable, realistic, and effective.

1995

1hr 56 min

Trailer:

U-571 (2000)

A German submarine is boarded by disguised American submariners trying to capture their Enigma cipher machine.


It's finally time to reassess the submarine movie to see if it's outlived its useful life. I was skeptical enough when Crimson Tide came out in 1995, feeling like a knockoff of The Hunt for Red October, itself an homage to Das Boot, it something of an homage to Run Silent, Run Deep. They even made Down Periscope, which four years of therapy have not helped me to forget. 

U-571 takes the Das Boot path, starring a dozen of the sweatiest men in Hollywood (the makeup department working overtime on this one), all led by everyone's favorite naked bongo player, Matthew McConaughey. Loosely based on real events, U-571 involves a WWII mission to capture a German Enigma encryption device from a sinking German submarine adrift in the middle of the Atlantic. Skipper Bill Paxton and his 2nd in charge McConaughey hop to the task, dressing up their wreck of a sub to look just like a German U-boat. One guy on the crew speaks German, so there shouldn't be a problem in posing as a rescue ship, right? 

The recovery goes as planned but, uh-oh, the Germans catch them in the act and sink the American sub. McConaughey, with his commander dead, decides to lead the surviving skeleton crew to take over the badly damaged U-boat and try to escape the big bad Nazis on their tail. 

Just describing the plot gets me juiced about the action in U-571. There are plenty of real thrills and enough Navy jargon to make any war-happy moviegoer perk up in his seat. Truly, U-571 is a fun movie, much like Crimson Tide. But... there is a catch. 

The problem is that U-571 is so overwhelmingly contrived that suspension of disbelief is nearly impossible. It's bad enough when we see the Nazis shoot up a rowboat full of survivors because of "orders from Der Fuhrer," just so we know it's okay to kill theGermans later in the film. But what of the later hushed conversation, when a grim-faced officer proclaims that there must be no survivors if a dangerous plan goes awry, because the Germans will torture them all without mercy? Anything to get the audience on your side, huh? 

There's the usual "take the boat below the most remotely imaginable depth" scene. There's a prisoner to contend with. There's all that "down bubble" talk. There are implorations to be silent. The usual sub clichés are all here, except they never "bottom 'er out on the ocean floor." 

But the icing on the cake is when McConaughey and his crew are on the run from the enormous destroyer, dropping dozens of depth charges, shooting torpedoes, firing cannons... and nothing seems to hurt this ship! U-571 is apparently some kind of German superboat! It's amazing it was damaged in the first place! Pretty soon, you'll probably grow tired of warching explosion after explosion do absolutely nothing to the sub, and then the thrills of U-571 will quickly fade. 

2000

1hr 56 min

Trailer:

K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster.


The travails of getting K-19 to the screen were almost as ill-fated as the maiden voyage of the Russian nuclear submarine the film is named after. When the Kursk tragedy occurred during the film's production, it seemed the parallels between the two incidents might render the project as exploitative or at the least inappropriate. But with the respectful period of time that elapsed before its release, the film has gained a greater poignancy. "Inspired by actual events," K-19 is an effectively taught if somewhat rigid drama that provides a chilling insight into the horrors faced by the crew of a stricken submarine.

Director Kathryn Bigelow and cinematographer Jeff Croneweth have done a good job conveying the claustrophobic setting, using shots that jostle through the narrow corridors and press up tight against the actors. But despite being so close to those involved in the unveiling action, K-19 gives all but the most cursory study of the people behind the frightened expressions. Instead it focusses on the chain of events that nearly led to a Russian confrontation with America during the height of the cold war.

In 1961, Russia, desperate to show they possessed some answer to US naval superiority, were anxious to launch their most sophisticated nuclear submarine yet, the K-19. To oversee the sea trials, the government installed the obdurate Captain Vortrikov (Harrison Ford) over the head of the crew's normal commander, the more popular and compassionate Captain Polenin (Liam Neeson). A series of accidents resulting in the death of 10 people, even before K-19 had been launched, caused it to be rechristened The Widowmaker.

Ignoring warnings from Polenin that the sub isn't ready, Vortrikov shows more concern for party policy than his men's safety and declares, "We deliver or we drown." After a series of rigorous tests at sea, his doomed prophecy threatens to come true as one of K-19's nuclear reactors springs a leak. All eyes turn toward the newly installed reactor officer Radtchenko (Peter Sarsgaard), who is asked what will happen if they can't fix it? His quivering response is "Hiroshima." K-19's most harrowing scenes involve the various attempts to repair the reactor, with certain exposure to radiation awaiting those assigned to the task.

Hollywood's version of this embarrassing chapter in Russian naval history, which was kept quiet until after the fall of communism, does little to dispel the stereotypical image of Russians as a cold, humourless bunch. Neeson comes closet, adding a rugged heartiness. The always capable but typically soulless Ford is perfectly suited to the role of the implacable captain, but other than Sarsgaard, whose character is used to symbolise the fear of the crew, the rest are reduced to contributing collective expressions of terror, anger and surprise.

Absorbing as K-19 is, the melding of fact and fiction dilutes its impact with the result that the consequences of what might have been prove to be more memorable than anything on screen.

K-19: The Widowmaker is a fact-based movie released on July 19, 2002, about the first of many disasters that befell the Soviet submarine of the same name. The film was directed by Kathryn Bigelow. The screenplay was adapted by Christopher Kyle, based on a story written by Louis Nowra.
The movie cost $100,000,000 to make,but gross returns were only $35,000,000 in the United States and $30,500,000 internationally,qualifying it as a box office bomb. The film was not financed by a major studio (National Geographic was a key investor), making it one of the most expensive independent films to date. It was filmed in Canada, specifically Toronto, Ontario; Gimli, Manitoba; and Halifax, Nova Scotia.

2002
2hr 18 min
Trailer: