The Boat
A German submarine patrols the Atlantic Ocean during World War II, manned by a crew that must contend with tense conflicts and long stretches of confined boredom. While war correspondent Werner (Herbert Grönemeyer) observes day-to-day life aboard the U-boat, the grizzled captain (Jürgen Prochnow) struggles to maintain his own motivation as he attempts to keep the ship’s morale up in the face of fierce battles, intense storms and dwindling supplies. It is 1942 and the German submarine fleet is heavily engaged in the so-called “Battle of the Atlantic” to harass and destroy British shipping. With better escorts of the destroyer class, however, German U-boats have begun to take heavy losses. “Das Boot” is the story of the crew of one such U-Boat, with the film examining how these submariners maintained their professionalism as soldiers and attempted to accomplish impossible missions, all the while attempting to understand and obey the ideology of the government under which they served.