by Shilpa Saravanan, editor-in-chief
Germany’s rout of Brazil in the first of this year’s World Cup semifinals reinforced fairly stereotypical opinions of Germans: that they are ruthless, efficient machines. Indeed, the media tends to portray Germans in exactly this manner. A disproportionate number of Germans in American films are ruthless, efficient and subhuman villains. Doubtless, Germany’s inevitable association with Nazism plays a significant role in this, even if the villains are not themselves Nazis–much of the rest of the world suffered terribly at the hands of Germany during World War II.
Nazism, however, is not representative of the entire German population, as German director Wolfgang Petersen makes clear in his 1981 film “Das Boot” (“The Boat”). In fact, Nazism barely makes an appearance, save in the needling by the rest of the crew of the only staunch Nazi on the submarine, the hapless first officer. “Das Boot” is not about good and evil. It’s about a lone U-boat, her mission and her crew.
Clocking in at three and a half hours, much the director’s cut of “Das Boot” is comprised of periods of seemingly endless tedium punctuated by brief flashes of action. The filmmakers intended this to reflect daily life on a submarine, and it works only because they put those blocks of nothing to good use: the audience learns, little by little, to appreciate the crew as ordinary human beings stuck in cramped, hellish conditions. A young cadet frets about his French fiancee’s pregnancy, the captain twice leads the crew in rousing renditions (in English!) of the British song “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” and many of the men abruptly end a party after hearing about their favorite soccer club’s loss.
Make no mistake, there’s still a significant amount of action. “Das Boot” wouldn’t be a World War II film without its first tense, then explosive depictions of submarine warfare. But it ascends to greatness among World War II films on its emotional strength: a crew of sympathetic characters (who happen to be German) simply trying to do their collective duty.
Image from Bavaria Film. Watch the trailer on YouTube & stream “Das Boot: The Director’s Cut” on Netflix.
