Colour of War (The Second World War in Colour) (1999)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Menu Animation & Audio Additional Footage
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	148:12 (Case: 163)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	John Thaw
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$49.95	Music	Chris Elliott

    Whilst colour film was by no means unknown in the late 1930s, it was equally not an extremely common product either. Therefore, most of the footage that has survived from the Second World War is naturally black and white. One of the problems with black and white film, however, is the fact that is does sanitise the impact of war to some extent. Colour film, on the other hand, brings a greater intensity to war, since there is nothing quite like red blood to produce a genuine impact. And so this collection of three episodes brings together a rather potted history of the Second World War using completely colour film, from a variety of sources.

    Whilst obviously not a direct competitor to the magnificent World At War, this is a most useful appendix to that series. Whilst obviously covering the war in a far less comprehensive manner, the use of colour film provides a much more striking collection of images. You should be cautioned that there are some extremely disturbing images included in the programme, including some footage of persons being executed by shooting and by hanging - a much more disturbing collection of images than hitherto seen in any Second World War documentaries I have seen before. Whilst I have seen some of the footage before, most of this footage is previously unseen, and well worth checking out.

    Despite the number of times I have seen Second World War documentaries, it never ceases to amaze me how inhuman humanity can be. And the even sadder fact is that despite the appalling loss of life, and the obvious global distress the war caused, we still have a complete inability to live in peace. You only have to look around the world today and see the stupidity of man on display. Palestinians and Israelis at each other's throats over something as ridiculous as their choice of religion. Brits and Germans fighting over something even more stupid as what football team they support. Afghanis fighting Afghanis because of their choices in politics, and plenty of other examples. Does Homo sapiens come in any more stupid a version, since we seem to be completely incapable of learning the lessons of millennia of fighting? Personally, I sometimes wonder whether all-out nuclear devastation might be a good thing, considering how thick the supposedly most-intelligent species on the planet is. If we cannot learn the lessons from the sort of footage included in this DVD, continued existence seems to be completely pointless.

    It might be disturbing but what is contained on this DVD is important stuff. Thoroughly recommended.

Video

    The transfer is presented in a Full Frame format that is not 16x9 enhanced.

    Frankly, given the importance and historical value of the colour footage included on the DVD, I really think that going over the quality of the transfer is senseless in the extreme. We are talking about experimental colour footage in some instances and obviously it includes inherent faults, but those faults really are of little concern. What we have got here is a virtually flawless transfer in every respect of the footage used. For the record however, the footage ranges from very average to absolutely stunning. Detail is usually very good throughout, although some footage obviously suffers somewhat from focus issues. Clarity is generally very good. There does not appear to be any low level noise infestations in any of the videos. Basically, this is variable quality source material given the best sort of transfer we could reasonably expect.

    With the source material coming from multiple sources and dating from the very early days of useable colour film stock, the colour is actually all over the place. Some is closer to black and white than colour, but some is so good it could probably pass for newsreel footage from the Vietnam War. So we run the gamut from undersaturation to oversaturation, and I really don't care about it either! The content outweighs the source stock problems.

    There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There did not appear to be any significant film-to-video artefacts in the transfer, although some minor and inconsequential aliasing is apparent here and there. Obviously the source material displays a wide range of film artefacts but nothing that would diminish the value of the source materials.

    The DVD is apparently a Dual Layer effort, and in the absence of noting any layer change, I can only presume that the first two episodes are place on the first layer with everything else on the second layer.

    There is just the one subtitle option on the DVD, English for the Hearing Impaired, so at least our Hearing Impaired readers will be able to know what is going on in the programme. They are quite well done, being placed in a decent white font on a translucent grey panel. Easy to read, they are quite accurate and the only time that things go awry is in some of the lengthier speeches and narrations.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is just the one soundtrack on the DVD, being an English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack.

    The dialogue comes up well in the transfer and is easy to understand. Audio sync is not an issue in the transfer since this is narration over mostly silent film.

    The accompanying original music comes from Chris Elliott and this does a good job of supporting the at-times harrowing footage.

    Since all the soundtrack has to do is present the narration, it does the job needed of it with ease. You will not be needing a massive and expensive speaker system to listen to this. Just throw it through the television speakers and you will still get the full effect of the soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Not an awful lot here, but then again I was not expecting too much either. The special feature called Letters and Diaries included in the extras menu is only a direct link to the relevant sections of the programme detailing the letter and diary entries.

Menu

    Quite nicely handled with some reasonable audio and animation enhancement.

Bonus Footage

    Obviously there is more colour footage available of the Second World War than presented here, since I have seen stuff that is not included here. The extra footage presented here is in three sections:

• Hitler In His Lair (5:01)
• War Over The Pacific (5:02)
• The Bombing Of Japan (5:01)

    This is in a very similar vein to the main programme other than lacking any narration.

    This DVD would seem to be the equivalent of a 2 disc box set released in Region 1 as World War II - The Lost Color Archives. That version is narrated by Roger Mudd and was produced by the History Channel, but would sound as if it is another instance of Americanisation of British-made documentary material. Assuming it is the same material, Region 4 would be the region of choice owing to PAL formatting and being on one DVD rather than two.

    Colour Of War is an essential collection for every home, as this contains some extraordinary material. Whilst the material contains some very disturbing stuff, it is important nonetheless.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall