Fast walking to the Prince Charles Cinema following a substantial meal at Bodean’s,
Causing mild but temporary damage to my spleen,
Testing the elastic capacity of my jeans,
All in effort to watch an extended 209-minute film concerning German submarines
Poetry, hm? Interesting metre variations, yes? Anyway…
I finally got round to seeing this last week, and it didn’t disappoint. Based on Lothar-Günther Bucheim’s 1973 anti-war novel of the same name, the film follows the plight of a crew of German soldiers in WWII as they struggle to survive during The Battle of the Atlantic. As a teetotal individual, watching the opener where the crew get sloshed in a French bordello before their immanent mission was vaguely amusing and vaguely distressing. According to IMDb, Otto Sander, who plays one of the U-boat commanders, was actually sloshed. Impressive. What would I behave like if I ingested that much booze? The possibilities are endless. Let’s not consider them.
Once the men get on the boat, their facial hair seems to start growing at alarming rates (pun not really intended; ‘Alarm!’ was my favourite quote from the excellent 2018 TV adaptation, but it doesn’t get the same amount of love in the director’s cut), and tension rises. The filmmakers are brilliantly adept at analysing the differing experiences of the older and younger crew, and particularly skilled in moving scenes of utter tension and unrest to moments of poignancy and comedy in a heartbeat, then circling straight back again. The eighties atmosphere rings loud and clear when the submarine rises above water, with the composition interchanging between noble orchestral sounds and motivational synth beats. It’s bears some similarities to Top Gun in that regard, except it’s not shite (Sorry not sorry Top Gun, you’re a bit shite). Like Top Gun, it’s also got its fair share of homoerotic scenes, but these moments are generally there for practical reasons (if you’re working in the heated engine room, you’re not going to want to wear a load of clothes), not random reasons like topless, sweaty ‘manly’ volleyball games (you’re a bit odd, Top Gun).
While the prospect of watching a near three-and-a-half-hour film might seem gruelling for some (this is just the director’s cut; the uncut version stretches to an eye-watering 293 minutes), Das Boot manages to retain tension and intrigue over the whole running time thanks to convincing acting, high stakes and unnervingly claustrophobic atmosphere. Most of the film’s $15 million budget was spent on constructing the U-boats, and the tension of the crew members was amplified by the fact that the cast was forced to remain in the boats during filming to evoke the same atmosphere that a real crew might feel on sea. With cinematic quality as high calibre as this, there’s no need to be alarmed.