Das Boot- A Viewer's Log

6:30 PM: As I prepare to embark on this journey through Das Boot, I am filled with trepidation. Never one to back down from a challenge, I am taking on the Director's Cut with a full hour of additional footage. (Because how could you possibly tell a story in a mere two and a half hours.) This voyage will take me past 10PM isolated from every word of English I know and love. Will I survive? And if I do will I still be the same man? Probably, I'm just watching a movie.

6:33PM: Very few films a bold enough to begin with a golden shower.

6:45PM: An indiscriminate shooting. Finally, something an American audience can relate to.

6:50PM: We get a tour of the ship. It's nice, but I was really hoping for something with a larger kitchen. We're going to move on to the next place on the list. Oh, this is the only place available. There sure are a lot of roommates. Strange, too. Do they always pile on top of each other like that?

7:00PM: Have irrepressible urge for ice cream. Pause film.

7:10PM: Our first contact with the enemy. Let's sink those English swine.

7:11PM: Hey wait a minute, these guys are Nazi bastards. Kill 'em all.

7:14PM: No, don't hurt these brave soldiers of the glorious Fatherland, you limey bitches.

7:20PM: Begin to wonder if I will put any music in this post. Realize I know four songs with submarine in the title. Seems high for such an esoteric object. Decide that The Lumineers have the most appropriate song. First song from this century used on No Spoiler Tags. Also first local music.

7:30PM: This movie is riveting. As in there are rivets flying through the air trying to kill everyone. Also it's suspenseful and compelling.

7:40PM: We are getting very familiar with the crew of this sub. Begin to think that the purpose of this film is to humanize people we traditionally consider the enemy. Maybe not everyone who fights on the other side of a war is evil. Maybe some of them are just people defending their homes. Maybe some of them don't even agree with their country's leadership. Nah, too crazy.

8:10PM: Phone rings. Pause film. It's a survey about movies. Hang up. Like I'm going to give my opinions about movies to strangers.

8:20PM: Burn the crew of a merchant ship to death. (Fucking Nazi bastards.)  Feel really sorry about it.

8:40PM: We are really getting tossed around by this storm. Why don't we dive to get underneath it?

8:42PM: We dive to get underneath it.

8:50PM: Lots of German sailor ass. Endearing German sailor ass.

8:55PM: Assholes at headquarters order us through the Strait of Gibraltar. This won't go well.

9:10PM: This isn't going well.

9:15PM: KABOOM! Surround sound is awesome.

9:20PM: Um-Ba-Ba-Bay.

9:25PM: Torrents of rushing water. Pause film. Torrents of rushing water.

9:30PM: Finally, we get to watch those Nazis drown like the fucking rats they are.

9:40PM: What? They aren't going to drown. Good drowning too quick for them. Let's see them asphyxiate knowing they are helpless to save themselves.

9:55PM: Yes, those noble men of the U-92 are getting off the ocean floor. They are a true inspiration to all of Germany.

9:59PM: And they will evade the English. Yes, they will make it back to port.

10:00PM: Swastikas and Gothic lettering. Hey, I think those guys speaking German riding a U-boat are Nazis. Fuck those guys.

10:02PM: The RAF fucks those guys.

10:05PM: The crew thinking they had reached safety after months of constant danger are now dying. And as the captain takes his last breath, watching the conning tower of his beloved ship which he and his crew had fought so hard to raise from its presumptive watery grave submerge for the last time into what was believed to be a safe harbor, we are reminded of the futility of war.