The Series
It’s important to point out that this isn’t exactly a new documentary. It was in fact created and aired in England in 2003. The series was produced and directed by Philip Nugus and Jonathan Martin. Their body of work for the last twenty years encompasses literally hundreds of documentaries including The Century of Warfare and Hitler’s Bodyguard. It’s an understatement to say that these gentlemen know how to make a compelling documentary.
The source material is epic and plenty interesting enough for most folks with a pulse. The first World War caused radical changes in the history of several European nations and altered the lives of tens of millions of people. The entire affair all started on June 28th, 1914, when a Serbian nationalist group murdered Austrian official Archduke Franz Ferdinand. This single event snowballed into one of the most gruesome wars the world has ever known.
After the assassination, Austria presented Serbia with an ultimatum, which wasn’t met, leading to a declaration of war. With Serbia in peril, they sought the help of their ally, Russia. Germany warned Russia not to interfere, as they were allied with Austria. When Russia came to the aid of Serbia, Germany decided to seize the opportunity to expand its land by plowing through Belgium, on the way to Paris. The French took to arms, and the British came to help as they were still the reigning superpower in Europe and could not sit idly by while the German war machine grew. What transpired in the next four years was death, tragedy, technological innovation, and eventually, victory for the Allies.
World War I In Color presents all of the major events of the War over the course of six episodes, each running about forty-five minutes. The series is narrated by Kenneth Branagh, who I hadn’t heard before but I quickly came to like his work. The War is presented chronologically, starting with the assassination and ending with the Treaty of Versailles. Each episode is packed with colorized footage that looks, frankly, outstanding. In addition to Kenneth’s narration and the footage, there are interviews with several British servicemen who served in the War. I believe they may have all since passed, but their words provide a tremendous insight and impact to the documentary. Anecdotes from letters and diaries written by soldiers and officers are also presented by voice actors with appropriate accents. Interviews with a half dozen or so experts also adds to the variety and depth of each episode.
The combination of how Nugus and Martin unfold their documentary is really effective. Visually, there is always something very interesting to witness, although you will see certain segments of footage several times over throughout the series. In addition to the intriguing film, the insightful narration and the anecdotes keep you drawn in and attentive. I also liked how the episodes were split up enough to give each a theme, but at the same time the overall state of the war was never forgotten. So while you may be learning about the advances and events in air warfare, its relevance to the war on the ground and to the state of the war in general are also taken into account.
Several months ago, I enjoyed reviewing WWII In HD, partly because of the compelling structure of its episodes. Were I to compare it to World War I In Color, I believe I would select the latter as the one that I ultimately find better done, if only slightly.
The DVD Set
This DVD set is made up of a exterior box with three slim DVD cases. Each case contains one disc, with the first two discs having three episodes each. English subtitles are available, but otherwise expect a full screen image of very nice quality and a good audio track. I was really impressed with how well the colorization worked. It’s evident from the extra features that Nugus and Martin went to great lengths to ensure that their colorization was as accurate as possible. As such, you will see subtle differences in the colors of the uniforms, as they were so many years ago.
Each disc shares the same menu style, which is straight-forward, clean, and functional. Disc three contains the extra features, which shouldn’t be missed. They are:
-Tactics & Strategy (46m) – This is essentially another complete episode, only it’s narrated by Robert Powell instead of Kenneth Branagh. In this extra, Robert looks at six aspects of the War and explains, as the title suggests, the tactics and strategies involved. These events include Germany’s final push in the early months of 1918, as well as naval and air warfare. In addition to re-using footage from the series, 3D computer animation is also used to explain things better.
-Making the Series (15m) – This feature has interviews with Philip Nugus and Jonathan Martin. The interviews were conducted at different times, and the feature flips back and forth between the two quite a lot. Both talk about the work involved in securing this footage, how they wanted the format of the show to be, and so on. It’s worth a watch.
-Biographies – This is a text based extra feature that gives readers a biography on ten different people of World War I, including Churchill and Hindenburg.
-General Facts – A handy reference of two tables, showing a variety of numbers. One table shows the number of soldiers mobilized, killed, take for prisoner, and so on, for the Ally countries, the other shows the same type of data for the Central Powers.
-Timeline of Events – Eighteen pages of bullet-style notes that take us from June 28 1914 to June 28 1918.
I learned an awful lot watching this series and had a great time doing so. When finished, the extra features provided an additional hour of good, worthwhile material, which can’t be said for a lot of DVD sets. Let’s get to the summary…