(Watched in July 2003) A good war movie after a long time. Good is an understatement, it has to be one of the best. Das Boot (The Boat, in English) is one of the perfect war movies and the best submarine movie I have ever seen. This is not the first time someone is bringing the story of other side to silver screen. 'All Quiet on the Western Front' was one of the successful war movie which brought the triumphs and tribulations of the Germans in WW1.
What impressed me about Das Boot is the reality as viewed and lived thru' by each viewer of this movie. No other war/submarine movie that I've watched, not even the latest one K19 - The Widowmaker, is anywhere near, inspite of the technological advancements which lets Hollywood produce slicker and more believable movies. Das Boot takes the crown despite its age. It was made in 1981. I watched the remastered version, which had more than 60 minutes of added footage from the original German TV series of the same name.
German U-boats, were considered technological marvels - that was what history books taught us. After watching the latest Hollywood flick K-19.., which was about a Russian submarine during the cold war years, the truth of that history lesson has been substantiated by Hollywood. Comparing the submarines, the German one in Das Boot in WW2 and the Russian one in K-19 which is operating a good twenty years later,(both stories are real) one can't, but admire the technological superiority of Germans, years ahead of their time.
For the entire length of the film, you are inside Das Boot, the U boat, cramped into its narrow confines with the rest of the crew, their anxieties, their triumphs and also their unhygienic conditions. Serving in a U-Boat is not as glamorous as it might have appeared to German youngsters of the time. Wolfgang Petersen did an amazing job with this movie, the cinematography and the script are also above par. If you haven't watched any war-time submarine movies till now, this is the best one to start with, it couldn't get any better (not yet).
