It's Not Always Better Down Where It's Wetter
To close out Sub Month, I'll be ending with what many consider to be the greatest submarine movie of all time: Das Boot.
Das Boot is considered by many submarine buffs to be the definitive sub movie. As a relative outsider to the genre, I wasn’t sure how accurate that would turn out to be, especially given some of the things people were telling me about pacing and the like. But after seeing it…I pretty much have to agree with the consensus.
The story revolves around a German U-boat in 1941, at the point when the British were gaining headway in fighting back against U-boat attacks. A naval correspondent, Lieutenant Werner (Herbert Grönemeyer) is assigned to observe life on a U-boat, led by a captain who is apparently named Captain Lehman-Willenbrock (Jürgen Prochnow) but who never seems to be called that in the film. The film then proceeds to spend the next two-plus hours on the submarine, showing every detail of that life, from the battles to the boredom. The first half of the movie is almost like a dramatic re-enactment; the second half is a more Hollywood like disaster/survival story, but the two halves blend together well, and adds up to a very compelling whole.
Before we go on, though, I have a brief disclaimer; I did not watch the very end of this movie, because the person I was watching it with chose to stop it and fill me in on what happens, and after hearing it, I agreed it was best not to finish it. From everything I hear, the ending absolutely ruins everything that came before it, and brings down what is otherwise an excellent movie. If you can, I’d advise you to do the same.
What really stands out about this movie is how real it feels. Obviously, I’m no expert on what it’s like to work on a sub, and definitely not a WWII sub, but all the little elements you see seem like the sort of thing that would actually happen. The sub isn’t clean and tidy; every available surface is used for storage, to the point where supplies need to be pushed out of the way to take a reading. The characters get more and more dirty the longer they’re out there. The sub actually responds to an increase in pressure by groaning or popping rivets. The crew is in close quarters day after day, which leads to a lot of banter but not very much fighting (which stands to reason, since you’ll be stuck with them for ages; better to play nice). In many ways, the sub is a character as much as the actual actors, and that’s what makes the film work so well.
Pretty much everybody who worked on this film clearly knew what they were doing. Obviously the sets are fantastic, but the sound effects are perfect, they don’t use music as a crutch, and the lighting is exactly what’s needed in any given scene. The acting/the characters are handled well too; the characters have been written to have one stock character arc or trait (the naïve liaison, the seen-it-all captain, the by the book first officer, etc.), but for this movie, that’s a good thing. It’s how everyone comes together on the submarine that really matters, and having stock characters that you can infer personality et al from allows you to focus on the larger story. Besides, the actors carry off their roles well, which allows the movie to have lighter moments to keep things from getting too grim. I have no idea how long it took for this movie to be made, but it’s clear that they spent a lot of that time trying to get things just right.
This is not going to be a movie for everyone. The pace is deliberately slow, which might put some people off, but the other elements more than make up for it. But if you’re game and you go into this having heard of its reputation, the odds are that you won’t be disappointed.
Das Boot is considered by many submarine buffs to be the definitive sub movie. As a relative outsider to the genre, I wasn’t sure how accurate that would turn out to be, especially given some of the things people were telling me about pacing and the like. But after seeing it…I pretty much have to agree with the consensus.
The story revolves around a German U-boat in 1941, at the point when the British were gaining headway in fighting back against U-boat attacks. A naval correspondent, Lieutenant Werner (Herbert Grönemeyer) is assigned to observe life on a U-boat, led by a captain who is apparently named Captain Lehman-Willenbrock (Jürgen Prochnow) but who never seems to be called that in the film. The film then proceeds to spend the next two-plus hours on the submarine, showing every detail of that life, from the battles to the boredom. The first half of the movie is almost like a dramatic re-enactment; the second half is a more Hollywood like disaster/survival story, but the two halves blend together well, and adds up to a very compelling whole.
Before we go on, though, I have a brief disclaimer; I did not watch the very end of this movie, because the person I was watching it with chose to stop it and fill me in on what happens, and after hearing it, I agreed it was best not to finish it. From everything I hear, the ending absolutely ruins everything that came before it, and brings down what is otherwise an excellent movie. If you can, I’d advise you to do the same.
What really stands out about this movie is how real it feels. Obviously, I’m no expert on what it’s like to work on a sub, and definitely not a WWII sub, but all the little elements you see seem like the sort of thing that would actually happen. The sub isn’t clean and tidy; every available surface is used for storage, to the point where supplies need to be pushed out of the way to take a reading. The characters get more and more dirty the longer they’re out there. The sub actually responds to an increase in pressure by groaning or popping rivets. The crew is in close quarters day after day, which leads to a lot of banter but not very much fighting (which stands to reason, since you’ll be stuck with them for ages; better to play nice). In many ways, the sub is a character as much as the actual actors, and that’s what makes the film work so well.
Pretty much everybody who worked on this film clearly knew what they were doing. Obviously the sets are fantastic, but the sound effects are perfect, they don’t use music as a crutch, and the lighting is exactly what’s needed in any given scene. The acting/the characters are handled well too; the characters have been written to have one stock character arc or trait (the naïve liaison, the seen-it-all captain, the by the book first officer, etc.), but for this movie, that’s a good thing. It’s how everyone comes together on the submarine that really matters, and having stock characters that you can infer personality et al from allows you to focus on the larger story. Besides, the actors carry off their roles well, which allows the movie to have lighter moments to keep things from getting too grim. I have no idea how long it took for this movie to be made, but it’s clear that they spent a lot of that time trying to get things just right.
This is not going to be a movie for everyone. The pace is deliberately slow, which might put some people off, but the other elements more than make up for it. But if you’re game and you go into this having heard of its reputation, the odds are that you won’t be disappointed.