Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Best movie ever?

i can't understand what you mean by "it had a happy ending".
can you?

Nazi submarine destroyed.

that line of thinking does not sit well with the aim of the movie which is not about the "good guys" vs the "bad guys", but about what wars do to people and some of the things they must do in order to survive. i guess you haven't seen the movie.

if you look at the crew "before" and "after", you can very well see the destructive effect and the horrors that wars bring on us, and that, because some very sick people can gain access to commanding positions.

Here's the beginning of a critique of the movie which is very informative as to it's purpose:

"In Das Boot, it matters not which uniform the men wear. Traditional historic and cinematic antagonists become the heroic protagonists because they're painted as real human beings, caught up in a situation where, it seems, they fight more to survive than they do for an ideal they may or may not hold true. Das Boot is superficially a World War II Submarine picture, but it is at its center a far greater picture that deals in the human condition under the greatest of stresses, at times when all those symbols they wear and the allegiances they pledge become only tertiary background elements in a much larger picture and puzzle. As such, it is perhaps the ultimate War film, for it portrays war as devastating not just to materials and the physical bodies of men, but damaging to their very essences, too, at a level where, indeed, basic humanity and the struggle to survive reigns supreme over any and all external elements that might shape, but rarely ever completely destroy, the deepest and most human of all traits that are shared across borders, uniforms, and time."

the whole review is here: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Das-Boot-Blu-ray/20919/#Review

Yes, JB, a German made movie which shows how the poor Nazi submariners were just some regular sausage eating folks like the rest of us. War, was portrayed as some external, irrational force which befell those poor saps.

I see it differently. Nazi Germany. buoyed by theories of race superiority, and a political theory of will to power, where races compete to the genocidal death, and Aryan destiny was to triumph or lose to the lesser races, like Jews and Slavs, unleashed hell on the world. Unlimited submarine warfare sent tens of thousands of seamen to the depths.

Those noble unter Wasser, deutscher U-Bootkrieg submariners, who fought for their nation but hated Nazis is baloney. Enthusiastic Nazis until the allies rolled them back. I am not aware of any notable moral struggles among Nazis when it came to machine gunning survivors in the water, slamming torpedoes into ocean liners, hospital ships, or using Jewish and Slavic slave labor in the protected concrete u-boat pens, so excuse me if the point of the movie missed its mark with me.

I saw it as an attempt to portray the hunters as victims of other hunters and isn't it all the same and terrible. We are all victims of war. But it was National Socialist Germany that started a war of conquest and extermination. May all National Socialists rot in hell.

Sorry if this offends the new multicultural Euro conceit which no longer even refers to the war as World War II but rather the European Civil War.

No. Doesn't work for me JB.

Yes, I believe it was a P-47 Thunderbolt which strafed the U Boat and its crew to the end they earned.

I think the Thunderbolt was an extremely successful aircraft. It doesn't get the attention that it deserves.

I agree Mr. Lampshade, P47, heavy, powerful, fast, surprisingly maneuverable.

No, you are thinking of Das Booty.

Das is varichte funny

I've posted this before, but it's worth a mention again - The Commitments. Great story, and absolutely dynamite soundtrack. Easily my favorite. (Played very very loudly)

Others I have enjoyed:
Walk the Line
The Breakfast Club
(Do you see a musical pattern here?)
Eddie and the Cruisers
Shooter (Mark Wahlberg)
Runaway Jury