Das Boot
Tags: realism, anti war, cult, thought-provoking, atmospheric, claustrophobic, suspenseful

Plot synopsis:
The movie opens with a screen noting that 40,000 Germans went out on submarines in WW2, and that 30,000 never came back. Then you find out that it is near the end of 1941, and the German Atlantic U-Boat fleet is a mere 12 subs.Now cut to the officers of U-96 driving down a dark road by the shore. Enlisted sailors are drunk and hanging out on the road. They harass the officers in a fairly obnoxious way, including urinating on their car as it goes by. The officers (including, as you soon find out, the Captain) take this in stride.The next scene is in a raucous beer hall. It is an award banquet for a sub captain Thomsen (Otto Sander), who just received a commendation, as well as a sending off for U-96's crew. Various scenes of debauchery play out. The officers are just a bunch of rowdy kids having fun. U-96's Captain (Jürgen Prochnow) looks on calmly. The Captain is then introduced to a party reporter, Lt. Werner (Herbert Grönemeyer) who will be accompanying them on their next tour to report on the greatness of the Reich's sub crews. They meet the Captain's chief engineer and de facto second-in-command "The Chief", (Klaus Wennemann), who is older and bedraggled and obviously doesn't look forward to another tour.The Captain goes to find Thomsen as it is time for the old guy to give a speech. He finds Thomsen nearly passed out drunk in a disgusting bathroom. He manages to get Thomsen to his feet with the help of another officer and guides him to the podium. They note sadly that all the crews these days are just kids, and that the old guard is almost gone. Thomsen gives a speech full of what comes very close to anti-Nazi rhetoric (a couple guys in the audience, possibly SS men, look tense), but ends it on a positive note without saying anything too incriminating.Now U-96 leaves port and you meet the rest of the crew. Of most note are the first lieutenant (Hubertus Bengsch), a prissy young hardcore Nazi, and the second lieutenant (Martin Semmelrogge) who is a clever jokester and constantly winds up the first lieutenant. Lt. Werner, the reporter, is led to the junior officer's bunks where he finds out that even the officers have to share beds because of space constraints. Lt. Werner is ribbed by Pilgrim (Jan Fedder), another jokester, and befriends a very young officer, Ullmann, with a French girlfriend back home who he constantly writes letters to. You also get your first shot of Johann, the head of the engine room, a pale, gangly fellow whom the crew members call "The Ghost".Now is the first stretch of drudgery in the movie. Lt. Werner snaps pictures of everything in sight initially, but gradually calms down. The crew goes about their day to day business with increasing dreariness, all of them except the first lieutenant stop shaving and grow beards, and their moil is only broken by a false alarm arranged by the Captain to keep them on their toes. During this time you learn that the Captain has no love for the Nazis, and morale amongst the higher officers seems abysmal.The Captain at one point decides to see how deep the sub can dive. The gauge limits the "safe" zone down to only 170 meters, but the Captain, much to the chagrin of the crew, takes it down to almost 200. This causes ominous creaking noises to emit from the hull, and everyone is relieved when the Captain orders the sub back up.After more boredom, the sub receives a transmission that a convoy has been spotted. The crew leaps at the opportunity to go after them, but the Captain says they have no chance of getting there in time and so they go back to twiddling their thumbs.Shortly thereafter, they get a message about a convoy that they will be able to intercept, and the Captain kicks the sub into full gear to catch it. They approach the convoy in very heavy fog, but before they can even get close enough to see anything one of the escort destroyers spots them and the sub has to dive. After being depth charged repeatedly by the destroyer but taking no real damage, the Captain manages to lose them and escape. The Captain notes that the British destroyers are getting smarter, and that they no longer make mistakes.Now is the final really long stretch of nothing happening. The crew is totally demoralised since they didn't even get close to sinking a ship and barely escaped with their lives, but still remain in fairly good spirits. Lt. Werner is obviously no longer enjoying himself and has stopped snapping pictures of everything in sight. Half the crew ends up with crabs. They randomly run into one of the other eleven subs in the Atlantic, which is a brief happy interlude, followed by the Captain being annoyed at the horrible planning and navigation that resulted in 1/6 of the fleet being in the same spot for no good reason.Now they get a transmission that there is a large convoy spotted and that several other subs are already converging on it. They decide to go for it too, and this time they approach the convoy unnoticed and fire several torpedoes at two of the freighters, landing direct hits. While they are launching the torpedoes they spot a destroyer in the distance, but don't think it will cause a problem. However, after launching the last of the torpedoes the Captain can't see the destroyer in the periscope any more. When he finally does see it, it is rapidly coming straight for them.They dive in a panic and manage to get far enough away that the depth charges don't cause any damage. They hear the torpedoes hit, and are quite happy until the first dreadful ping of the destroyer's ASDIC (British sonar) system sounds. The sub sits there with the pings getting closer and louder, the destroyer approaching, unable to do much besides hope it doesn't notice them. It does notice them, though, and starts depth charging them like mad. You see a shot of Johann wedged under some machinery, holding his head in his hands and looking freaked out and miserable.The Captain manages to evade the destroyer, only to have a second destroyer come at them from a different direction. Left with no choice, the Captain orders them to dive VERY deep, well into the red zone on their depth gauge. The water pressure causes bolts to start popping inwards, damaging equipment and wounding a crewmember. At this point Johann, now totally out of his mind, stumbles onto the bridge babbling incoherently. The Captain orders him back to his post, but Johann just lurches towards him. The Captain moves away and eventually the other officers are able to get Johann out. You see that the Captain was about to shoot him.Finally all signs of the destroyers fade, and the sub hangs under water for six more hours just to be safe. It then surfaces to find that one of the ships it torpedoed was an oil tanker, which is now surrounded by burning oil but not actually sinking. The Captain orders another torpedo fired at it to finish the job. As this torpedo hits, the sub crew is able to see that there are still survivors on the tanker. The Captain is incensed that in six hours no one came to rescue them. The survivors swim towards the sub, but the Captain sadly orders them to move away. The crew who witness this, particularly Lt. Werner, are very distressed.Running low on supplies and fuel, the crew expects that they are now to dock at La Rochelle, France. Instead they are given grim orders: they are to secretly dock with an undercover German supply ship at Vigo, a neutral Spanish port, then make the crossing of the British-controlled Straights of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean to reach the Italian coastal town of La Spezia. The Captain knows that this is essentially a suicide mission, and he arranges for Lt. Werner and The Chief (whose wife is very ill) to leave the sub at the Spanish port and make their way back to Germany. Lt. Werner doesn't want to go, but the Captain insists that he's already been in too much danger. Werner agrees to take the junior officer's love letters (there are dozens of them) to his French girlfriend.Johann comes to the Captain and apologises for leaving his post, insisting that it won't happen again and begging the Captain to not court martial him. The Captain is hesitant, but eventually accepts Johann's apology and sends him off.They make it to Vigo and the secret supply ship turns out to be fantastically well appointed. The officers go aboard and are treated like heroes by the fawning crew. The officers are sullen and do not take kindly to the princely treatment. They are even more annoyed by the ship's crew begging them to tell their exciting stories.In the midst of this the Captain receives a telegram from headquarters. Leave for Lt. Werner and The Chief has been denied. They have to stay with the ship til the end. The Chief is visibly upset, but says that it's a good thing as his replacement would be some incompetent kid. Lt. Werner is conflicted, but definitely unhappy about having to give the junior officer back his love letters. The ship is resupplied and they go on their way.The sub stops away from the Straights of Gibraltar to take stock of things. They can see a fleet of British warships patrolling the depressingly narrow gap between the cliffs. The Captain, for lack of a better idea, decides that they will make a silent run towards the gap, then dive deep at the last minute and hope that the tide can help them drift under the enemy fleet. No one, including the Captain himself, seems to put much stock in this plan.When the time is right, they begin their run towards the Straights. They are immediately noticed and shots from the ships begin exploding around them. The Captain and the navigator are on the ship's lookout when a plane flies overhead, strafing them with gunfire and hitting the sub with a bomb. The Captain and navigator (who is badly shot up) head back into the sub, which immediately starts diving.Unfortunately, due to the damage from the bomb the sub is unable to pull out of the dive. It goes deeper and deeper, past the point that the bolts start blowing out again and horrible noises come from the hull. The pressure causes several pipes to burst and parts of the sub start flooding. The sub eventually comes to a rest on a rock at about 280 meters down, well beyond the limit of the depth gauge.The sub is flooding badly and its engines aren't working. Meanwhile, the navigator is bleeding to death and the doctor is desperately trying to keep him alive. The crew goes into a panic of trying to patch up the damage and stop the water from flooding the entire sub. Amidst the chaos of people madly jamming whatever they can into the leaks, Johann heroically dives into a deep flood puddle to find and jam the source of a major leak. The Chief shimmies under floor panels to replace a bunch of damaged batteries, braving the noxious fumes created by the spilled battery acid in the process.As the leaks stop and the shot navigator stabilizes, the Captain and the Chief assess their situation. There is a bunch of damage to fix, and all the water needs to be bailed out, and if all goes perfectly they might have one shot at surfacing. They are also short on oxygen and need to do everything quickly so they don't run out.The crew goes about bailing the massive amount of water, bucket-brigade style, into the bilge where it will be blown out when they try to surface. The Chief starts repairs. After hours the water is all bailed and the crew is utterly exhausted from the effort. Oxygen is critically low. The Captain orders all men to go to their bunks and relax, while the Chief continues his repairs.The crew is all collapsed about the sub, oxygen deprived and resigned to death. Even the Captain despairs and blames his own recklessness for the crew's fate. The Chief finishes repairs, however, and believes that they still have a chance. The Captain and the Chief resolve to give it a try. They blow their ballast and slowly start rising. Johann fires the engines and, amazingly, they start and work. They surface and everyone takes ecstatic breaths of fresh air. The Captain notes that since they are presumed sunk, they can easily escape and make port back in La Rochelle.The sub limps back to La Rochelle. Droves of people are out to greet them, and the tired mariners get a heroes' welcome. They look exhausted but happy that they made it.Just as the movie seems about to end happily, an air raid siren sounds. Enemy warplanes swoop in, gunning and bombing everyone and everything in sight. Lt. Werner and the Chief manage to make it into a shelter along with a few of the sub's crew. After the planes leave Lt. Werner goes out to survey the damage.Most of the crew is dead. You see the corpses of Johann, the second lieutenant, the junior officer with the French girlfriend, and others. Finally Werner comes to the Captain, who is still standing... but a trickle of blood flows from his mouth and he slowly collapses. Werner looks on, horrified. The Captain lives just long enough to see U-96 sink from sight. The camera zooms out of the scene, with Werner holding the dead Captain.

Review: After being in the Navy for four years, serving with around 350 different men, and being acquainted with a further 200-300, all of them submarine sailors, I think that I can state with absolute certainty that this film is the ONLY submarine movie that ALL submariners take seriously.
Here is a movie that explores heroism, duty, patriotism, hope, fear and the futility of war--all grand themes--explored in the confined, and collapsing, spaces of a German u-boat.I saw this film when I was a freshman in college during a weekend that I later dubbed my "depressing movie festival." (The Wall and Apocalypse Now were the other weekend "entries.")  Of these films, it was Das Boot that haunted me--when I laid down at night, I saw Jurgen Proctow's pained blue eyes.
Drama, tension and resolution occur naturally in Das Boot, which contributes to the very real impact of the film.Story is a 10, direction is a 10, acting is a 10 and the cinematography is a 10.
Patriotism for my own country would tend to make me hate the crew on this ship by definition (especially if portrayed as typical mindless killing machine Nazis), but these characters are so well developed and played like human-beings facing difficult decisions that I find myself sympathizing with these guys.I love the flow and pacing of the Director's Cut; it takes its time, and does not feel like typical Hollywood formula "first major plot point at minute 12" cookie-cutter routine.
Then when the action finally starts: how they deal with the possibility of dying deep underwater, how they react to the sounds of a sub going deeper than it should, the look on their faces as a destroyer is heard pinging them, and dozens of little personality quirks--subtle details that bring the crew to life.
It truly does feel like an epic about a submarine crew, and I'm interested in some day viewing the 6 hour TV version.The underwater battles somewhat remind me of Sergio Leone in that Wolfgang Peterson takes forever and a day to get the fights started.
For the rest of you, I feel certain you will too be dragged in and know what it is like to live on board a WW2 U-boat.This movie also shows how leadership is so important in keeping the crew (and ultimately the sub) together.
Don't watch this film unless you are absolutely prepared to immerse yourself into the drama of life as a crewman aboard a German submarine during war.
I can't imagine another film actually displaying what it must have been like to be on one of Nazi Germany's U-boats - young nationalist boys being plucked from their mother's bosom and cast into the claustrophobic iron wolfs in the heat and height of the second world war, who begin to doubt the cause and victory of the fuhrer they've been taught to love and trust.
It would probably be too laborious to refer to the decisive symbols the director uses, therefore I recommend this movie to everybody, especially those who are interested in the Second World War.It presumably sounds pretty weird, yet I suppose that mankind gladly participates on the misfortune of others, without being closely involved with it.
As i grew up i began to understand more about the second world war and was able to make up my own mind as to whether the 'evil Nazis' were all that the cinema portrayed them to be, but 'Das Boot' always stuck at the back of my mind as an outstanding example of how to show fighting men, from what ever side, in the best possible way.Lots of people rave about 'Saving Private Ryan' being the ultimate WW2 film.
The Boat has everything; Fine actors, an excellent script (which doesn't deviate from the Novel at all) and excellent hand-held camera work, supported by brilliant lighting, and 20 years before 'Private Ryan' too!Das Boot is an excellent example of how to depict the horrors of war without resorting to a blood and gore fest and it remains a film that everyone should see it it's entirity at least once..
In October 1941, the German Capt.-Lt. Henrich Lehmann-Willenbrock (Jürgen Prochnow) of the U-96 U-Boat receives the war correspondent Lt. Werner (Herbert Grönemeyer) to cover the work in the submarine during their mission in the Atlantic Ocean.
The German captain, officers and crew are not shown as one-dimension character or sad killing machine like in many war films, but as human beings with families and friends, very efficient in their works but with fear and other feelings.
It knocks hollywood epics like Saving Private Ryan on their sorry overproduced, oversentimental behinds, it torpedoes other submarine films before they have a chance to shout "dive!, dive!, dive!".I first saw this in its original form as a miniseries with english subtitles, and if you can find this version then this should be your first port of call, although the Director's cut I now own is also top notch and doesn't miss much from the series.where to begin?
It's one of those films that will make you watch if only you can spare the ten minutes it takes for it to grip you.Being British, I thought it impossible to feel sorry for the U-boat crews, especially after what they did to us - but this film forces you to realise that we are all fragile and emotional (despite what Hitler says).I would recommend people watch the mini-s rather than the film (i.e. German subtitled version) to get the full flavor.As a side note, my grandfather (twice decorated destroyer captain) burst in to tears watching this at two points: One was at Gibralta, the other on the straights :| Says a lot..
Watching Das Boot, you forget that the crew is German, which in Western society we are taught is the 'bad team' of WWII, and see them for what they really were: ordinary men.
The acting is absolutely first class the characters totally believable and although u do not get to completely identify each of them you really do start to imagine what life on board a WWII u-boat in the latter part of the war must have been like.
With the exception of the noise levels that crew members made in the movie (for drama purposes) he told me that it was a very faithful depiction of the life and hardships a submariner lived on a U-Boot.I personally have always admired the film because it depicts war without glorifying any of the participants.
You are not guided by the director or the plot to identify with any particular character - you can actually relate to many of them, and therefor immerse yourself in the claustrophobic experience they live.Its an excellent piece of film making that combines drama and action into a very powerful anti-war message.
This is a deeply impacting film because the audience really feels the claustrophobia, the filth, the tension and all the other emotions that the 42 crew members of the U-Boat go through.The sentiments of Das Boot are decidedly anti-war.
By showing that it consists of bureaucratic senselessness, German officers living in a fantasy world, the despair of the fighting men - it makes for a touching tale.The director's cut is the version to be seen although it is long.
My favourite was the charge through Gilbratar.Although this movie takes on an Axis power's point of view, one can discard the political aspect of this film, and understand that lives on both ends are similar - each are fathers, brothers, husbands, and are thrown into a senseless political war.
I've seen a fair number of war movies, but none can come close to "Das Boot." I saw it first in theaters when it was first released, in German with subtitles (great); saw it again in theaters, dubbed in English (awful); and then just saw it on the DVD director's cut with subtitles (excellent).
As a movie, this presents a problem because the viewer is taken through all that time in somewhat realistic fashion, which in turn makes the film long and not quite as gripping.The real punch of the movie, though, are the characters, their life on board, their hopes for a successful cruise and a return to normalcy.
After seeing Das Boot, I can't ever bring myself to watch any other submarine movie.I give it 9.5/10 stars; just barely on the edge of a perfect 10, but not quite..
Of course, when he lets his emotions loose at certain pivotal moments in the film, the audience is spellbound, and Prochnow commands the scenes of the movie as surely as his character commands the ship and its crew.
Das Boot is one of the best anti-war movies ever to have left the mind of any director.
A sheer masterpiece of unrelenting terror that makes impeccable use of its claustrophobic atmosphere, nerve-wracking tension & nail-biting suspense to deliver a World War II epic that's still unsurpassed in the authenticity of its tension & realism, Das Boot is a naval adventure unlike anything seen on film before or since.
Director Wolfgang Petersen takes us through a fantastic journey,giving us an insight into the fun, fears and general life aboard a German submarine during the second world war.
It is a piece of art , more than a commercial movie,and that is what makes Petersen such a good director in this film.I felt I was at that submarine together with those heroic sailors.
This film has to be seen in its full length to be fully appreciated as a true masterpiece and dubbing only serves to take away some of the impact of the dialogue.The director handles matters from an entirely balanced view and shows the submariners aboard the u-boat as being both heroes and cowards as they swing from hunters to hunted.
As the movie progresses it is hard not to feel sympathetic towards the crew of the u-boat and it is almost impossible not to see them as victims.The film ultimately stands as a bold and brilliantly crafted portrayal of the futility of war.
It lacks the gloss and glamour of other films of this type and concentrates on the hardship of the crew and the almost squalid conditions in which they are forced to live.The end is one of the most powerful scenes in any war movie and points to the fact that in the end everything that men do in war is pointless and without any honour or heroism.
At the end of the movie I thought "what was the point in any of that", and then it hit me that that was precisely the reaction the director was after.By the way, U-boat stands for: "under sea boat" and I don't know how true it is, but I heard that one of the full size models used in Das Boot was used again in Raiders Of The Lost Arc..
It's a great movie, one of the best at capturing the feeling of being there.What is less impressive, at times, is the more ordinary character development that seems inevitable in a movie this long--2 ½ to 4 hours depending on the version you have, I saw the long one, the director's cut.
The other standout character, for me, is Johann (Erwin Leder), who has one of the most gaunt and frightening faces in movie history.Speaking of the crew, some critics have complained that the film is far too sympathetic to them, since the Germans were the universally recognized bad guys of World War II.
I can understand why some people might be bored by "Das Boot," but of course director Peterson actively tried to make parts of the film slow in order to simulate the tedium of daily life on a submarine.
The models draw you out of the realism a bit - you may find yourself wondering who turned off "Das Boot" and put on "Godzilla" instead - but, for the time, they look fine (I could point to several equivalently lame model shots in "Star Wars," for instance, but that would be blasphemy.) Anyway, the effects are certainly respectable enough to earn our (slight) indulgence.There are really no problems with this movie, then - it's one of those "just about perfect" films.
I watched the 216 minutes Director's Cut and I must say that even if it lasted for over 3 hours it was not boring.Das Boot takes place on a German sub during World War 2.
The U96 and the other boats have been, for all practical purposes, mere pesky details the Fuehrer has already written off and so the physical isolation of the U96 crew is thus compounded with a very real sense of abandonment, not even allowed the simple victory of mere survival, which makes the sailors' tragic fate that much more poignant.Although I am no film critic, I get the impression that the director (Wolfgang Petersen) had a great appreciation and knowledge of the cinematic techniques of Akira Kurosawa as well as of Russian filmmakers like Andrei Tarkovsky and of great familiarity with classic English war dramas like "Sink the Bismarck." His Kurosawa-like portrayal of the often baffling nature of human behavior in various situations, the Russian literary theme of the individual facing the colossal power of nature (in this case, the sea) and the meticulous attention to detail, continuity and realistic characterization representing the best of British cinema are all apparent here..
The most realistic u-boat/submarine film full with all the details of the contemporary sub VIIc. The commands are quite correct for that time, some scenes are too spectacular & unreal as my grandfather told me but the rest is so real that I could see the fear in the eyes of my grandfather after the first 30 minutes (beyond the inside lightning which wasn't neither red or blue).
When I heard that a German WW2 story was being filmed I wondered how they would portray themselves....This was one of the most amazing movies I have ever seen...you feel as if YOU are part of the crew, you will live or die in a small steel cylinder around 100 feet long.
well actually as a German, i liked watching this movie several times...it is, IMHO, as was stated before a good description of the folks who were drawn into war 70y ago...there are no real bad guys and no good guys...and thats who it is..we all are no bad or good guys..we are drawn to the reality we live in...
There have been far too few films made about the U-boat crews during the Second World War, but since Das Boot, it seems as though no others are necessary.
Wolfgang Petersen's epic "Das Boot" is one of them, as it has introduced the "submarine war film", a genre that later included hits such as "The Hunt for the Red October", "Crimson Tide", etc.
Unlike Leone, once the torpedos are launched and the depth charges dropped, the cat-and-mouse game is ongoing and relentless, but never boring.And despite the fact that most of the film takes place inside a cramped submarine, Das Boot is never boring to look at; in fact, it's a visually spectacular film (given the dated special effects, who hold up reasonably well and add to the old-school charm).
Unlike Leone, once the torpedos are launched and the depth charges dropped, the cat-and-mouse game is ongoing and relentless, but never boring.And despite the fact that most of the film takes place inside a cramped submarine, Das Boot is never boring to look at; in fact, it's a visually spectacular film (given the dated special effects, who hold up reasonably well and add to the old-school charm).
The color and composition of the shots in those tight quarters -- particularly upon approaching the first destroyer when we get the first real glimpse of the interior prepped for war -- it is both haunting and beautiful.Jurgen Prochnow delivers the most believable performance of a ship captain I've ever seen on film.
The color and composition of the shots in those tight quarters -- particularly upon approaching the first destroyer when we get the first real glimpse of the interior prepped for war -- it is both haunting and beautiful.Jurgen Prochnow delivers the most believable performance of a ship captain I've ever seen on film.
It's both disappointing and satisfying that I'm not given enough space to do so (I wish I could state that about a tenth of the films I've reviewed here on IMDb.) I liked the entire crew of this U-boat, the war correspondent and his character arc as he realizes the truth behind these "heroes", the chief and his longing to return to his wife, Johann and the story of his redemption--all well cast, well acted, and believable.Another aspect I adored about Das Boot - the controversial scenes simply rolled by with no more or less emphasis than any other statement the film makes.
It's both disappointing and satisfying that I'm not given enough space to do so (I wish I could state that about a tenth of the films I've reviewed here on IMDb.) I liked the entire crew of this U-boat, the war correspondent and his character arc as he realizes the truth behind these "heroes", the chief and his longing to return to his wife, Johann and the story of his redemption--all well cast, well acted, and believable.Another aspect I adored about Das Boot - the controversial scenes simply rolled by with no more or less emphasis than any other statement the film makes.
Wolfgang Petersen's "Das Boot" from 1981 is one of the greatest films ever made.Claustrophobic, sweaty, wet, rocky, tense, frightening - Das Boot shows young Germans during World War II in a submarine, headed up by an old man, played by handsome Jurgen Prochnow, whom I believe was supposed to be 30 - actually the actor was older, but the point is that this crew is a bunch of kids.
I was not sure how I would feel watching a movie about a WW2 Axis U-Boat crew but I'll admit, I really liked these characters!!!