Das Boot (1981) dir. Wolfgang Petersen
“They made us all train for this day. ‘To be fearless and proud and alone. To need no one, just sacrifice. All for the Fatherland.’ Oh God, all just empty words. It’s not the way they said it was, is it? I just want someone to be with. The only thing I feel is afraid.”
Once film was first exposed to the horrors of war in the late nineteenth century, there was no going back. The worst of humanity would forever immortalised first on celluloid and now on digital. Filmmakers quickly realised the power of bringing those horrors to the general public and for as long as cinemas have existed this power has been used for both good and ill. When narrative film took off as an artform, war followed it.
Dozens of war films are released every year. Few of them have the tact required to approach the subject with the appropriate delicacy. François Truffaut (The 400 Blows, Day for Night) famously stated ‘Every film about war ends up being pro-war.’ and doubled down on his statement by asserting, ‘…to show something is to ennoble it.’ And there is certainly merit to his statement. The directors of Fury, Black Hawk Down, The Hurt Locker, Saving Private Ryan, or Hacksaw Ridge would certainly argue their films are strictly anti-war but there is an undeniable sense of the ‘do not do this cool thing’ trope. I must admit it is exciting when a column of tanks charge over a field firing tracer rounds at their enemy or when one man remains behind to sacrifice himself or to save another life. Exciting, yes. But potentially dangerously deceiving.
For every five movies which (incidentally or not) make war look ‘cool’ or inspiring there is one totally incapable of being viewed as anything but staunchly anti-war. Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957), Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989), or Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978). These are all brilliant Hollywood films in their own right, however, the one above all to disprove Truffaut’s statement does not come from America, Wolfgang Petersen’s 1981 claustrophobic nightmare, Das Boot.
Before I get to the meat of this review it must be noted I am specifically referring to the 209 minute long Director’s Cut (although the theatrical cut is still incredible). Additionally, although the English dub is excellent – some of the original actors reprise their roles – but the subtitled edition is superior. Do not be afraid of foreign language films, as master Bong Joon Ho said, ‘Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.’
The film opens in a black silence. Then, the distinct sound of a sonar ping breaks the tension. The pings continue and a wall of white text appears on the black. It is a sharply written prologue, laden with context for the story about to unfold but with a distinct hint of melancholy and foreboding:
…the German High Command orders more and more U-boats, with ever younger crews, into battle from their ports in occupied France. The battle for control of the Atlantic is turning against the Germans.
40,000 German sailors served on U-boats during World War II.
30,000 never returned.
It is a stark reminder of the position the characters are in and reveals the true thesis of the movie. This is not a movie about heroes or grand world-defining battles, it is a movie about a group of people doing everything in their increasingly limited power to be one of the lucky 10,000. The screen fades to a filthy, murky green. The pings subside. Klaus Doldinger’s hypnotic, driving yet somehow grand score rises from the deep to take their place as the ghostly silhouette of a submarine emerges from the gloom and charges toward the camera. The music rises and with the crash of symbols, the title card.
The audience is thrust into a car speeding along a storm-battered coastline, each well-dressed occupant is jammed shoulder to shoulder, gazing at the murky road ahead. Here Petersen introduces the audience surrogate, Lieutenant Werner (Herbert Grönemeyer) a correspondent assigned to a submarine crew to photograph the men at work and document their heroic struggle against the British fleet. Petersen employs Werner effectively, making him his own person with believable fears, aspirations and personality, elements which would be difficult to implement for a lesser filmmaker. With Werner in the car is the U-Boat captain (Jurgen Prochnow). He is the most important person on the ship and he is one of the greatest characters put to film. All of the characters are incredible. Chief Engineer Fritz (Klaus Wennemann) is a character I’ll never forget. The same goes for Johann (Erwin Leder) and Number One (Hubertus Bengsch). Everyone on the boat is a fully realised character, just like Werner, they might as well be real people. And for all intents and purposes they are. Novelist Lothar-Günther Buchheim wrote his novel of the same name based on his experience serving as a correspondent on a U-Boat in the north Atlantic. The characters aren’t real, but they are real that’s the wonderful trick this story pulls.
What happens when you look at evil and it looks back with a human face? Petersen goes to great length early on to show the people you are going to know best are no flag-waving, war-mongering Nazis. These men are, admittedly doing their best to fight the war for their evil leaders but every step of the way incompetency further up the chain of command prevents total victory. There is to be no victory. This is not a movie about victory or defeat it is about people. People in a terrible situation, desperate to survive and when all temporary labels or opinions or ideals are stripped away that’s all that matters. On a U-Boat the fate of one man is the fate of all men.
Das Boot truly is a masterpiece. This is a fact reinforced by the moments when sound, score, performance, effects and cinematography all align in spectacular operatic moments that basically make you levitate out of your seat while you contemplate the horrors the characters have endured and performed themselves.
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