This film is a throwback to the halcyon days a decade ago when brexit was still unheard of. As of late 2021, with anti-European and especially anti-German sentiment running strong in the UK and with a government in Westminster whose default response to domestic policy problems is stoking cross-channel tensions, something like this would no longer be produced, and if it were it would not be broadcast, at least not in Britain. The picture is on the whole nicely made and well-acted. Franka Potente is excellent, as usual, as is Lindsay Duncan who plays a snooty aristocrat - a type of role that suits her perfectly (watch her in the HBO miniseries 'Rome'). Ken Duken as U-boat commander Hartenstein and Andrew Buchan as third lieutenant of the Laconia are very good, too. Still, I have a number of reservations about the picture.
1. It is too long. I don't need non-stop explosions and action, but this film could easily have been condensed to a good one-and-a-half hours without detracting from the story in any way.
2. The way the character of Dönitz has been drawn. Dönitz was an 150% Nazi: 'Hitlerjunge Quex', as he was called. He may have condoned Hartenstein's actions, but he did so not for humanitarian reasons but because they provided valuable propaganda material. And he certainly did not have any moral reservations about the murderous order he is giving towards the end of the film (not so save any further victims of U-boat attacks); on the contrary, that order was entirely in keeping with his ideological approach to warfare. The film is whitewashing him.
3. A strange thing I noticed is that the subtitles used for the German characters often do not match what they are actually saying. In most cases they offer relatively free translations, which is of course fine, but at least occasionally they deviate quite widely. I wonder why - but I am not interested strongly enough to re-watch the picture in order to try to find a pattern. Still, strange it is.
