![]() ![]() Even if you don’t know, your subconscious is going to register it. Showing this like that is such a minimalistic approach but it works well. Those shots are dark grey, almost like black and white shots, and I couldn’t help thinking of a wolf, before I remembered that the U-Boots were called grey wolves. Most of the action takes place inside but we occasionally see the U-Boot from outside, see how it silently glides through the waters, like a predator. I loved how this showed the hypocrisy of those officers who were true to the regime but not willing to actually fight for their country. Without ever being openly aggressive or rebellious, the crew sabotages the nice little dinner event by just being themselves- gruff looking, outspoken and past niceties. They are well-groomed, well-fed and beyond clueless when it comes to the battle in the Atlantic or what the crew has gone through. Spain is neutral territory and those stationed there have probably not seen any combat. The captain and his officers are invited to dine with the officers stationed in Vigo. It takes place just before they leave Vigo. But as suspenseful as this is, there’s another scene I like even better. The fight for the boat and, ultimately, for their lives, is one of the most gripping scenes in war movie history. The most exciting part is when they have to pass the straits of Gibraltar, get hit and sink rapidly. When they think they can finally return to La Rochelle after a few weeks, they are sent to Vigo in Spain, to resupply, and from there to Italy. They encounter destroyers and are shot at by planes. The second part of the series, is much more action packed. The captain lets them dive occasionally for an hour or two, just to give the men some rest. Most of the time the U-Boot doesn’t dive and in a storm it’s even shaken more badly than many other ships. The worst thing that happens is a three-week storm. The U-Boot gets in the line of fire of a destroyer but other than that it’s relatively quiet. Most of the characters are complex and likable and not exactly Nazis. The first half of the TV series doesn’t do much more than introduce the characters and the daily activities on a U-Boot. After watching this, without ever having been on a U-Boot, you’ll have a good idea of how claustrophobic this must have been and of how helpless the crew must have felt at times. We see a lot of the story through his eyes, and, as usual, when we have a young journalist/writer character like this among the crew, the movie is to some extent about the loss of innocence, the futility of war etc. But that’s the topic of many war movies, what makes Das Boot so outstanding is how carefully it’s been filmed, how accurate it is. He’s a lieutenant but inexperienced in combat, as it seems, and has never been on a U-Boot. This time, they have a war correspondent on board, Lt Werner (played by German singer/songwriter Herbert Grönemeyer). The crew members are mostly young, in their late teens and early twenties, only their captain is thirty years old. They are cheering, singing and looking forward to their mission. I’ve not seen the Director’s Cut, so it’s hard to compare but I really love the slow build-up of this version.ĭas Boot starts in 1941, in La Rochelle. ![]() Or, I’d even say, movies don’t get any better than this. I don’t think war movies get any better than this. I’m glad to say that after rewatching it, it’s still among my Top 10, even among my Top 3. When I started this blog I wrote a Top 10 favourite war movies list and Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot was one of them. I can’t believe I didn’t rewatch it earlier. Chaplin ridicules the infamous real-life dictator, but also warns of his dangerous rhetoric and desire for power in more serious ways, too, with The Great Dictator becoming an even darker film when watched post-WWII, with the knowledge of what Hitler himself managed to achieve throughout the 1940s before Germany's defeat in 1945.I love this movie. In The Great Dictator, Chaplin doesn't technically play Hitler, but Dictator Adenoid Hynkel is a clear stand-in. While it's certainly a dramedy and can be very funny at times, the story is overall more serious, as the film aims to satirize Adolf Hitler, who'd built up power throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, taking control of Germany in 1933 and gearing up to commence what would become World War II in the mid to late 1930s. The Great Dictator is therefore significant within his filmography as his first true non-silent movie, as well as for being a darker and more dramatic movie than the sorts he'd made before. Charlie Chaplin was an actor/filmmaker who held out on making non-silent films for longer than most, given his two most famous movies of the 1930s - City Lights and Modern Times - were essentially dialogue-free (and remember, the first talkies came out in 1927). ![]()
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