7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 3.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A sumptuous series that tells the story of the most extraordinary river in the world - the Ganges. Human life and nature bustle along her river banks, in a kaleidoscope of colour and energy. From man-hunting tigers to giant lizards, here the wildlife is as diverse as the people. Traversing from the peaks of the Himalayas through frenetic cities to the teeming delta where the river meets the sea, this is a vibrant and colourful look at how the Ganges shaped the wildlife, culture and beliefs of India.
Documentary | 100% |
Nature | 90% |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080i
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD HR 5.1
Hindi: Dolby Digital 2.0
Bengali: Dolby Digital 2.0
English SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
She is a truly fascinating spectacle of geologic trends and environmental extremes. Hers is the lifeblood of an area of land so vast, it is a subcontinent all its own. The Ganga, or Ganges, river is not the longest river in the world, nor is it the most well-known. But the lay of the land in which the river formed helped to mark her significance to what is now over 500 million people. To claim the Ganga is merely one river is highly misleading. She is the longest, and certainly the main artery. But Ganga Ma - Mother Ganges - obtains her strength through the confluence of thousands of tributaries along her 1,560 mile journey to the Indian Ocean, and along the way nourishes a huge diversity of life, not the least of which are human beings.
Ganges is a comprehensive documentary produced by the natural history heavyweights, the British Broadcasting Company. It is not strictly a wildlife feature, nor is it an obnoxious travelogue. It is merely a view into the world of the great river, and the habitats and human cultures that she has helped to form.
Planting rice paddies under the intense morning sun.
Encoded in VC-1 and averaging around 25 Mbps, Ganges is a truly gorgeous series. Although the picture is 1080i and 60Hz, it is very impressive in its own right. Ganges rivals its fellow BBC Blu-ray documentaries Planet Earth and Galápagos in stunning picture quality - much is to be commended of the British production company for their extraordinary work and unusual attention to detail.
For a series so focused on water, this Blu-ray Disc is relievedly free of artifacts like macroblocking, which tend to crop up easily on subjects featuring fast or fluid motion like rapidly flowing water. Colors are so vibrant they almost seem surreal. Indians live a life in Technicolor; their architecture, formal dress, and even their cuisine is saturated in a blaze of brilliance. This is captured wonderfully well on Ganges, and the Blu-ray is almost hypnotizing in its spectacle. On a related note, blacks are nice and deep with no crush, and whites never get bloomy and out-of-range.
The only detriment to the video is, of course, the interlaced picture, which lends a slight softness to the series. It is not so much a flaw as it is the very nature of the image, and overall, it does not make a marked difference to the beautiful presentation of this documentary.
BBC continues a hopeful trend of improving the technical specifications for their Blu-ray releases. Often the only audio options available on documentary BDs are lossy Dolby tracks in stereo or 5.1. BBC has pressed a precious few titles with something a smidgen closer to true lossless sound, and Ganges is one of those. Featuring an English track in DTS-HD HR 5.1, the series does not boast a truly uncompressed source, such as Master Audio or TrueHD, but it sounds (and feels) a load better than its "lossier" counterparts. The title's two additional audio tracks - one with Hindi narration and one with Bengali - are included in Dolby 2.0. Simultaneously a curious and highly appropriate decision for inclusion, the tracks are hypnotizing with the respective languages' mellifluous flow of words - their fluid manner of speech seemingly influenced by the Ganges herself. The downside to their lossy stereo encodes, of course, is the lack of a fully immersive aural experience, as described below.
The narration by Sudha Bhuchar is clear and rich - her deep voice, with its slight lilt of an Indian accent, adds to an immersive experience for the viewer, drawn in to the world of the vast subcontinent and its complex watersheds. The roar of the river and the crumbling of mountains is captured nicely in a surprisingly well-used LFE channel. The rear channels are used sparingly for a convincing "envelope" effect in shots surrounded by rushing water. In addition, ambient noise - be it the native flora and fauna or the vast urban landscapes - is represented quite well. Ganges has created a soundscape worthy of such rich visuals on high definition.
It is becoming habit for most documentaries on Blu-ray to feature nothing more than the film or the series itself, with no extra features included. BBC, however, tends to buck this trend with at least a modicum of supplements on the side - sometimes. As with its exceptional audio, Ganges is one such title - packaged with a handful of deleted scenes and a somewhat disjointed "Making Of" featurette.
The former consists of six sequences with no narration, or even sound. The ever-present score is laid over each brief segment. A title card comes between each, giving a short summary of the scenes ahead. Some of them are rather interesting, but it's understandable why they would be cut for pacing reasons. First to be shown is a pilgrimage of religious devotees carrying well-crafted effigies of various Hindu gods up the mountain trails to the isolated villages of the Ganges' sacred sources. Garhwali shepherds are then shown tending to their herds in the brief Himalayan summers. Around August, the residents of Bishnupur celebrate the Festival of Jhapan, in honor of the snake goddess Manasha. Much of the festival's activity centers around the charming and handling of the indigenous cobras, resulting in a fascinating display. Then the attention shifts to focus on the practice of drying and using cow dung as an alternative fuel for burning in regions where firewood is scarce. A brief segment then shows the hand-picked harvest of mangoes, with mischievous langurs leaping amongst the trees making harvests of their own. The final segment depicts a pata painter at work - the artists are renown for their elaborate artwork featuring natural and spiritual themes.
The disc's "Behind the Scenes" featurette is, as mentioned, a bit disjointed in its presentation. What it really is is several segments of crew at various locations undergoing the daily pains of filming. These segments are squished together in a consecutive play mode, and don't allow the viewer to choose between them from the menu. Three projects are followed here, beginning with the chilly job of filming time lapse sequences in the Himalayas - specifically a sunrise. Then a project requiring a hefty amount of patience - trying to capture elusive Asiatic black bears on film in the remote village of Tolma, using motion detectors and infared cameras. The third follows the Sundarbans Tiger Project into the wet wilderness on the track of a local problem tiger, which they trrack down and tranquilize. After examining and collaring the cat, she's determined to be an elder tigress with missing or worn teeth, and as a result is quite emaciated. The crew educate the local villages on safety measures to take when venturing into the mangrove forests, in order to reduce the chance of tiger attacks.
The BBC continues their record of fine work documenting the world at large. Their work is an excellent means of introducing oneself to the wonder of our planet. Having loved an annotated VHS copy of David Attenborough's Life on Earth as a kid, I can fully attest to that! Featuring gorgeous visuals, lush sound, and intelligent narration, Ganges is another high definition winner from the BBC. I highly recommend this series on Blu-ray Disc to anyone for both its educational value and the pure spectacle of India's color, vastness, and inherent beauty. Namasté.
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The Complete Series
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