I found a gem of a film today not on YouTube this time but on Dailymotion which is very much the same. It was another film I had never seen and according to my research never received a UK release. The Blockhouse (1973) could be a possible true story although at the end of the film it is claimed to be a factual tail.
It is reportedly a true story of six German soldiers, two of whom survived trapped in a storehouse in Poland for 6 years. Four of those years in total darkness.
In the film, the story was changed from German soldiers to forced labourers. Seven men forced by the Nazis to work as labourers on Normandy coastal defences but today is D Day and as the coastal bombardment begins run for cover. They run into a nearby shelter where they end up entombed deep beneath the ground in a storehouse filled with wine and food. Initially overjoyed to be alive and free of the Nazis they soon realise that they are stuck in this cellar with little chance of discovery, which becomes to feel like a claustrophobic prison where they have little to do except die slowly from boredom.
We basically experience how these men dealt with being in this storehouse prison. We see how one of the men works out a way for them to measure time by counting his heartbeats and watching a candle burn. We see another trying to break through a sealed duct, something one thinks is foolish whilst another understands he has nothing else to do. We also see how one expects the Germans to come and rescue them whilst with no daylight people's body clocks quickly are messed up and they lose track of days. But of course, we see how tension between them builds as the claustrophobic nature causes some to go stir crazy.
Peter Sellers gives an outstanding performance of a person dealing with isolation, desperation, death, and lost loved ones and it was one of a very few straight acting roles given my Sellers.
My Rating
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