There are long sequences here-especially when the boat is sinking out of control-when we feel trapped in the same time and space as the desperate crew. And it's not shot in tidy setups, either the cinematographer, Jost Vacano, hurtles his camera through the boat from one end to the other, plunging through cramped openings, hurdling obstacles on the deck, ducking under hammocks and swinging light fixtures.
There is a brief opening sequence in which the boat puts out to sea from a French base, and a refueling sequence near the end, but all the other scenes are shot inside the cramped sub, or on the bridge. Although we become familiar with several of the characters, it is not their story, really, but the story of a single U-boat mission, from beginning to end. The film is like a documentary in its impact. This 1997 release of Wolfgang Petersen's director's cut, is not a minor readjustment but a substantially longer film, running 210 minutes. When "Das Boot'' was first released in the United States, it ran 145 minutes and won huge audiences and no less than six Oscar nominations-unheard of for a foreign film. We identify not with the mission, but with the job. By making it a German boat, the filmmakers neatly remove the patriotic element and increase the suspense. If it were an American sub, we would assume the film ends in victory, identify with the crew, and cheer them on. In a way we can focus on that better because it is a German submarine. It is about the desperate, dangerous and exacting job of manning a submarine. "Das Boot'' is not about claustrophobia, however, because the crew members have come to terms with that. Being trapped in a disabled submarine is worse. The officers' mess is so cramped that when a crew member wants to move from the front to the back, he asks "permission to pass,'' and an officer stands up to let him squeeze by. 1981: Das Boot The interior dimensions of the German U-boat in "Das Boot'' are 10 feet by 150 feet.