Content

Content.
This blog needs more of it. Now that I am aware of at least 4 people who read this blog I guess I should start putting more stuff up here. Its not like I don't have stuff to post, it is more a lack of real satisfaction with what I have written. Alot of what I have written is of course in the form of an essay for school. Many of these essays I am proud of but would like to expand on and perfect. Something which I was not able to fully do in the face of a deadline.
Deadlines.
Something I am use to writing for the leftist school publication (which we just won a local award for. weird.) However, this summer I dont have deadlines. So I am striving to really perfect some things I have written. For when they are finished, they will possibly be, beyond just newspaper I write for, published.
Published.
I have a fear of posting my creative writing online. Therefore, I will only publish creative writing on my blog that has already, previously been published. If you would like to read more of my creative writing then email me and I will send it to you. This fear is from people stealing what I wrote. Not that it is amazing or something....but what if it is.
Is.
Writer, journalist, grad school for creative writing. All the above I have concluded in the last week are my...dare I say...passion. Still, unlike many of those who surround me, I will refuse to call myself a writer for the time being.
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Now here is an article/essay I have been working on. I really want to work on combining culture, arts, etc and contemporary politics and social situations of our world. I would like to expand this more with quotes and/or comparison to other war films. Maybe not though. Enjoy.
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Going Beyond War: The lessons of Kanal and Das Boot

There is no question that war is hell. This seems to be becoming even more apparent as the situation in Iraq continues to fall apart and the daily tally of people killed continues to rise. Recently, I re-watched two war films; Kanal and Das Boot, and it occurred to me the strikingly applicable nature of these two films to our current situation in Iraq. Both films present that war leaves little room for humanistic statements on the worth of the individual or any philosophizing over morality and ethics. Furthermore, each film displays the dehumanizing affect of war through its treatment of those involved as mere pawns in a greater game. Through its anti-heroic stories, the very realistic and devastating consequences of warfare are revealed and serve as a reminder of how atrocious war can be.
The films focus both focus on a small group of individuals and display their struggle to survive as they are forced through the most extreme situations ultimately to no avail. At the bitter, ironic conclusions of these films, we are left to question the purpose of what these characters have just endured. These films testify that amongst the heroic stories of combat, there are an equal number of stories of warfare ending in no heroes and no valiant victory. Ultimately, we are left with a group of young, dead soldiers whose simple desires and wishes have been cut off for a sometimes vague and seemingly purposeless aim.
Despite both these films being over 20 years old (Kanal over 30), they seem to make stronger statements about intricate aspects of war that many other war films seemingly lack. In comparison to other war films such as The Bridge Over the River Kwai or even the more contemporary The Thin Red Line; these films succeed in breaking down the dualistic paradigm of definitive protagonists and antagonists. Unlike most war narratives, Kanal and Das Boot through an attention to the grim nuisances of armed conflict, create stories based on the plight of the individual soldier and succeed in creating a different dialectic of war that argues for the preservation of the ultimate human gift; life.
In an interview accompanying the DVD of Kanal, the Polish director of the film Andrzej Wajda stated,
“I think that the strength of Kanal lies in the fact that it is limited to this certain group of characters and pointing out that they died.”
Wajda plainly reveals the simplicity that Kanal is about the horrors of war and does not allow for any heroic or victorious themes. Furthermore, the film quickly reveals that its aim is not politically or historically based. Rather, Kanal plainly reveals the reality of the final hours of the characters and displays the extremities they had to endure in a very personal and intimate way. Kanal recognizes the participants of the Polish uprising, but in no way glorifies the situation. This is where Kanal is most affective.
From the very beginning of Kanal we are told to watch these characters closely for this is the last hours of their lives. In the same scene we are revealed that this group of individuals is very common people with no lofty aspirations. They simply want to live; something their Nazi oppressors are trying to prevent. Thus they are cast into the roles of soldiers and forced to endure the most extreme of situations. As we watch them descend into the sewers as a last ditch effort for survival, the obvious physical analogy to “hell” is revealed. But what evil or action have these individuals taken to be cast into this abyss? Kanal leaves us with no such explanation but continues to focus on the slow demise of their last hours.
Evidently in war such reasoning does not exist. Thus, Kanal concludes with no victory or success achieved and no point or explanation given. Conclusively, it only reveals the realities of the devastation that war can cause and that bravery can ultimately lead to nowhere. Through its refusal to name a hero or reveal any hint of hopefulness for the future, Kanal ultimately becomes a film that manifests into a blaring anti-war statement that holds strong even today in the face of the Iraqi conflict.
While in Kanal the soldiers were fighting for liberation of their city and country, Das Boot displays a group of men fighting on the side of Nazi Germany. However, it is quick to display that hardly any of the men support nor are necessarily members of the Nazi party. This facet of Das Boot creates an interesting element to the narrative that further strengthens its themes and seems only further applicable in today’s situation.
While these men may fight under the jagged black curves of the Nazi swastika and thus technically fight in support of Hitler, we can still view this film and sympathize with these men without any moralistic or political dilemma. These men are soldiers who choose this position and were assigned to the submarine. Their position is first and foremost a job to them and comes before any socio-political agenda. We bear witness to the captain openly criticizing Hitler. Another scene depicts a home sick sailor writing letters to his French lover. These contrasts allow Das Boot to reveal the strange complexities of war and the individuals that participate in it with glaring relevance to the current Iraqi conflict.
One of the most essential elements of Das Boot, is its ability to display the sailors as ordinary human beings taking part in a global conflict. The American troops of today’s Iraqi conflict are no different than the World War 2 Nazi sailor depicted in Das Boot. Whether fighting under the pretense of fascism or democracy, these individuals are individuals fulfilling their duty to being a solider.
With each passing frame of Das Boot, it becomes increasingly more apparent that the higher military regime that gives their orders holds their lives with little value. The individual does not matter. War becomes Us vs. Them and the assigned mission must be achieved at any cost. The fact that these men are given orders by a political body they don’t necessarily support makes the struggle throughout the film seem even more absurd and further displays the situation as truly tragic.
The conclusion of the film only further highlights the absurdity of the situation. The shockingly realistic and anti-heroic scene that Das Boot closes with causes war to seem wholly inexplicable. Ultimately, the film is a grim depiction of warfare with a perceptivity that allows its themes to go beyond that of a specifically German experience, but of an experience that has and must be endured by those individuals on both sides of the conflict.
Das Boot speaks for the individual participators who serve as pawns to help carry out the work of war. Through focusing on humanistic elements of these individuals, the film reveals the blurred lines between the enemy and the ally.
Upon their conclusion, neither of these two films provide condolence or any elucidation on their tragic outcomes. The viewer is left questioning the purpose of such struggle and as the final credits finish one is left asking who is to blame. No answer is given. Rather, Kanal and Das Boot break down and rule out all our preconceptions and ideologies of war and leave it up to us to recognize the only deduction that can be made; when the fingers start to point and accountability must be allocated, liability for the death toll on both sides of the conflict must be first attributed by those highest in command and not entirely on the individual soldiers. However, these films do not leave the soldier free from consequence. Opposed to the true offenders, who direct these individuals from afar and never have to bear witness to such ugly tribulations, the films display that a soldier’s punishment lies in the psychological weight they must bear for having actually experienced, witnessed and partaken in such atrocities. It is here that lies essence of these films; their ability to depict war through the humanistic and tragic outcome of the participating soldier while leaving it up to us at the final scene to take that last step towards its ultimate thesis.
Ultimately, Kanal and Das Boot are a grimly refreshing alternative to that tired old dualistic conflict of the hero and the villain, the good and the bad by depicting war as an event that results in none other than the death of individuals. No matter the politics or what side you choose to align yourself, the grim and unfortunate reality is that war equals death. These films are ultimately a great aide memoire of such unfortunate truths.