Sunday 12 May 2013

DAS BOOT

Wolfgang Petersen - 1981

A claustrophobic 'journey to the edge of the mind'. Filmed over a year, sequentially scene by scene, in a submarine sized tube. Watch the beards grow and skins become pallid.

The film exists in several versions of varying duration: 150, 209, 300, 208 & 293  mins.

It was filmed silent with the actors over dubbing themselves in English and in German.

Look at the opening sequence from 0:01:10 to 0:02:04. It is a single underwater shot, pre-title sequence, in unseeing viscous green. The shot is silent and uses duration and obscuration to infuse oppressive suspense and apprehension:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Boot