Das Boot

As we all know, VHS tapes are on the out and DVD's are here for a bit longer. We'll probably all be watching movies digitally in the next few years. However, in that time I still have my VCR and a few VHS tapes. I decided to watch them again for posterity sake while I still own a VCR.

The movie I dug out of my box for this weekend was Das Boot, the German movie about World War II - from their perspective. As any historian will tell you, history is told by the victors. In this case, the Germans decided they wanted to show what it was like for German seamen of the submarine flotilla, or Kriegsmarine.

The movie starts out with a party in some French town and everyone is totally out of their mind stupid drunk. However, they know what they're getting into. Nearly three-quarters of all Germans who went out on a submarine never returned. Most knew that there was a good chance that they would never see land again.

The next day, Captain Leutenant Henrich Lehmann-Willenbrock is led to his new boat, U-96 and they head off to sea to intercept ship convoys and sink their prey.

What is interesting about the movie is that there is a strong anti-Nazi feel amongst the men. Most seem to understand that they are being led by an ego-maniac and eminent death awaits the country.

In reading about the movie, the actors were confined to the submarine model that was created for the movie for many hours and denied sunlight. This was to help give a more realistic sense of the anxiety and darkness that the sailors would have experience at sea.

Truly a military movie classic, this is a must see. The only actor that would be known to Americans is Jürgen Prochnow who was in The English Patient, Beverly Hills Cop II, and Dune.

Das Boot is Rated R for violence, language, and tense situations. The movie is long - it's 209 minutes, which for people that attended Baltimore City Public Schools - that's 3 hours and 29 minutes. I give this movie the maximum rating - 5 stars.