Fifty men live in a space where a man can stretch out his arms and almost touch both bulkheads. There is not enough fresh water to wash bodies or clothing. Most grueling are those moments when the boat is depth-charged by British destroyers. The film almost exceeds our capability to watch it in a sequence when the captain, obeying orders tantamount to suicide, tries to sneak past the British blockade of the Straits of Gibraltar and the U-boat is attacked by fighters. It passes the design crush-depth of its hull, which begins to scream and distend.
Rivets pop with the velocity of bullets and carom around the bulkheads.
The reworking of the sound-effects tracks will make you duck. I don't recall seeing atavistic peril so comprehensively evoked as the men fight for the boat's life, which is also theirs. Somehow they survive, as jubilant for life as they are for victory. My reaction to Das Boot today is perceptibly different from the first time I saw it. Because the film was so good to start with, I remembered much of it, so there was not the sense of discovery involved in my most recent encounter with it.