Das Boot

You know, I’m a little embarrassed.  This whole time I’ve been pronouncing it the way it looks, like the footwear.  The same way you would say “I’m gonna stick my boot in your ass”.  But it’s supposed to be pronounced the same way we say “boat” in English.  Well the damage might already be done.  I don’t know if I can change the way I say it now.  By the way it’s a pretty good movie that Das Boat.

The most interesting thing about it, at least for me, is that our heroes are Nazis.  I mean, most of the world agrees that they were kinda bad people.  But I’ve never seen such a humanization of this group before.  Usually Nazis are portrayed as robots, unemotional, insensitive, endlessly suspicious, distant, arrogant, narrow-minded, brutes, cold blooded fuckin’ murders, etc.  None of that exists in this film.  The crew of U-96 gets scared shitless, they worry, they get bored, they get cabin fever, they play games and try to keep themselves entertained.  These guys are just doin’ their job.  The captain (Jurgen Prochnow (In the Mouth of Madness, Judge Dredd)) never talks about how puny or stupid the allies are.  In fact he respects them when they put up a good fight.

I wanted to see all of these characters make it through their mission.  I wanted them to succeed and blow up ships when they had to and make a safe getaway when they had to.  It was always in the back of mind that these sonsabitches are Nazis but my emotional attachment overruled that notion. 

Wolfgang Petersen said he wanted to make the most realistic submarine movie ever and it seems like he did just that.  Since almost the entire thing takes place on the sub there is a very claustrophobic feel to it all.  You can see the descent into boredom, fear and general untidiness and uncleanliness that the sailors go through and it’s a little depressing to watch.  Things don’t always go smoothly, in fact very little goes smoothly, and my heart went out to these poor bastards.  They weren’t all up Hitler’s ass or nothin’ the whole time.  They were too busy worrying about trying to keep themselves alive.

With this realism, however, also comes classic Hollywood type shit (yeah, I know it’s a German film but the same shit applies).  The entire part where they need to repair the sub and lift her to the surface towards the end is the kind of triumph over strife against all odds you’ve seen a million times.  Another example is the Lieutenant that the story is, sorta, told through.  He’s on board as a war correspondent and his idea of life on a U-boat is glorious and exciting.  Of course, it’s completely terrifying and totally different than what he imagined.  None of this is bad though.  I just wasn’t expecting there to be so many movie-ish elements at play here.

However, the very end of the picture is absolutely incredible.  Don’t worry, I won’t spoil it for you.  I have to give Petersen credit for going with this.  He took your typical ending (one of two possible classic type conclusions) threw it on the ground, pulled down his pants and took a horrifically messy shit all over it.  I absolutely loved it.  This is one of the ballsiest and most audience-snubbing endings I’ve ever seen period.  And this is at the close of a three and a half hour epic too (I saw the Director’s Cut version).  Bravo Petersen.

It’s weird that he went on to make some pretty shitty movies like In the Line of Fire, Air Force One and The Perfect Storm.  They’re very watchable (well I’m not sure about The Perfect Storm) but they’re not films that exhibit such a great balance of cheese, realism and drama.  Nor do they possess very big balls.  Maybe a small set of balls, but not big ones.  I did enjoy Outbreak though.  And I do have to see Shattered.

Das Boat isn’t perfect.  It can be repetitious but maybe that’s the point.  Life aboard a sub was a cycle of waiting for the enemy, battling the enemy, recovering from the battle.  And you’re trapped inside this fuckin’ tin can underwater for weeks or months or however the fuck long these grueling deployments lasted.  But even with the three and a half hour running time I’m not sure what could’ve been cut out.  I wonder how the theatrical cut compares.  It’s an hour shorter which seems like there would be way too much material left out but maybe it works fine.  I’ll have to figure that out one day.

Anyway, I know this isn’t news but this is a fine sea going vessel here.  It really is just a very cool picture.  See it.