Today is "my day off" as Padma has gone into the Bay to help a lady-friend run a charity fundraising stall in the mall. It gives me plenty of time to watch once again the 150-minute-long German movie "Das Boot" which follows the crew of a German U-Boat during WWII at a time when there is already a sense that the Germans are on the losing side of the Battle in the Atlantic.
Like Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front", Lothar-Günther Buchheim's book "Das Boot" was meant to be an anti-war novel. Though impressed by the technological accuracy of the film, the author was disappointed with the 1981 film adaptation which, according to him, converted his clearly anti-war semi-autobiographical novel into a blend of "cheap, shallow American action flick" and "contemporary German propaganda newsreel from World War II".
A sequel of the same name, in the form of a 280-minute-long television series, was released in 2018, with different actors. It was set nine months after the end of the original film, and is split into two narratives, one based on land, the other set around another U-boat and its crew. Like the original film, the series is based on Lothar-Günther Buchheim's 1973 book "Das Boot", but with additions from Buchheim's 1995 follow-up sequel "Die Festung". However, the original 1981 film is today regarded as one of the greatest German films ever made.
A full-length version of the film is not (yet) available on YouTube, but I have found an hour-long documentary about the making of it here:
If Padma stays away long enough, I might even start on the book again.
P.S. Okay, I've tracked down four parts of the six-part TV series here:
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
