HOME Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

HOME Blu-ray Movie Review

“We have succeeded in disrupting the balance that is so essential to life on earth.”

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater June 24, 2009

A few years ago, I woke up to the dawning realization that my carbon footprint was at least a size 14, maybe even bigger. I was basically wearing pollution snowshoes, traipsing willy-nilly around God’s green-for-now earth without a single thought of the Yeti-sized imprints I might be making. So, my goodly wife and I—not to pat ourselves on the back or anything—made a conscious effort to do the little things: cut back on waste, bring our own bags to the grocery store, recycle anything recyclable, you know, the things even remotely liberal people are supposed to do in a consumer culture newly consumed with going green. And we were surprised by how good it felt, how easy it was, how much pride we took in refilling our svelte aluminum water bottles. But then I watched Home, and had the wind swiftly taken out of my organic cotton sails.

Nearly every frame is this well composed.

Why? Because after watching Home, a lovingly crafted look at planet Earth and a dagger- pointed indictment of what we humans have done to it, I was left feeling a kind of collective guilt on the behalf on mankind, as if it were me personally who had invented agriculture, discovered oil, and trashed our environment. Home gave me the same sense of awe and discovery that I got from the BBC’s Planet Earth and The Blue Planet series, but then followed up the jaw-dropping splendor with an ecological uppercut that sent me reeling. Is it enough to drive a hybrid car? Am I helping the water supply by turning off the faucet while I brush my teeth? Can I save the world one post-consumer, recycled roll of toilet paper at a time? It’s easy for us common folk to become overwhelmed by the thought of environmental degradation, and it’s even easier to say screw it, and toss a wadded McDonald’s bag out the window of an SUV. So while the message of Home—every little bit helps, and let’s all join together to do our part—is clear and undeniably important, the film may leave some viewers feeling small and ineffectual.

Filmed in over fifty countries, Home is the brainchild of French photographer and conservationist Yann Arthus-Bertrand. In the early 1990’s Bertrand formed a stock photo agency that specializes in aerial photography, and in Home he puts his ample knowledge of the field to spectacular use, framing some of the world’s most awe-inspiring vistas with an eye that’s keen for composition. Filmed from above, the Earth’s landscapes take on the lines and rhythms of abstract painting. Rivers flow and intersect, stampeding herds raise clouds of dust, and man- made structures etch the ground with unlikely patterns. The first quarter of the film is devoted to unspoiled territory, as narrator Glenn Close describes the early formation of the Earth and the interconnectedness of all living things. The tone is hushed, reverential, magical even. But then something happens. We see a squatty hut, some domesticated animals, a primitive human presence. We see an oil fire burning above the jungle. Suddenly, the score trades shimmering strings for the pounding, percussive beats of industry. Humans have shifted the balance.

The remainder of the film is devoted to the myriad ways in which we plunder and mar our environment, from deforestation and over-fishing, to pesticides, water use, and energy consumption. Virgin landscapes give way to industrial wastelands, ravaged mountainsides, and the squalor of shantytowns. The reality of our eat-it-up, spit-it-out wastefulness isn’t pretty. Like An Inconvenient Truth and The 11th Hour before it, Home has been called a wake-up call, and the filmmakers are desperately hoping that we resist the urge to sleep in. Glen Close repeatedly challenges us to change, saying “it’s too late to be a pessimist,” but it’s hard to feel optimistic when, like disobedient puppies, we’ve just had our noses rubbed in our own filth. For all the time it spends on problems, Home is surprisingly light on answers, and this is why I came away from the film feeling discouraged. Home is undoubtedly beautiful, timely, and important, but I would have preferred to trudge less through the environmental missteps of our present, and focus more on the potential solutions we can enact to change the future of our planet. It’s sad that the filmmakers feel they need to prove we’re harming our environment, but it’s sadder still that there are people, to this day, who refuse to acknowledge the soon-to-be irreversible damage we’ve caused in the past 100 years. It all goes back to perspective and willingness. We may each be small—the grand scope of Home shows us that—but en masse humankind is anything but ineffectual. If we would just apply the same dedication and know-how to saving the Earth as we have to milking it dry, the prospects for the next 100 years would look a whole lot less bleak.

HOME Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

"Minerals and metals are even older than the earth. They are stardust. They provide the earth's colors. Red from iron, black from carbon, blue from copper, yellow from sulfur."

Colorful doesn't even begin to describe Home's AVC-encoded, 1080p transfer. Every color of the rainbow—literally, check out the screenshot above—is represented with lush, saturated, eye-popping realism. Watch elephants as they wade through a verdant marsh. See the starry sky blues off the coast of Dubai, or the pale sheen of ice-covered rivers from above, branching like Earth's arteries. Black levels too are strong, from the dense smoke above Iceland's volcanoes, to the inky deeps of the forest as an oil fire burns fiercely overhead. None of this would matter if the image itself was dull, but Home cut through my home theater screen with perfectly balanced contrast and sharp, almost three-dimensional clarity. Nearly every shot has a carefully composed, painterly quality, and though Home was filmed using an HD Cineflex camera, the image has a rich filmic look that belies its video origins. Only the darkest scenes show any signs of digital noise, and the transfer is completely free from any macroblocking or banding issues, even in the most subtle color gradients and peaked highlights. This is reference-quality material throughout, and Home truly is a joy to behold.

HOME Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

"Our earth relies on a balance in which every being has a role to play and exists only through the existence of another being, a subtle, fragile harmony that is easily shattered."

As Home opens, a deep LFE-heavy rumble builds as the sun rises on a view of Earth from space, and the DTS-HD MA 5.1 track announces its intention to be every bit as impressive as the imagery on display. And for the most part, the track fulfills its promise. The first thing to be aware of, audio-wise, is that ambient noise plays very little part in Home's incredibly wide scope. As it was shot from a helicopter, the film is mostly composed of vast, pulled-back vistas that give the appearance of a silent planet, and the mix reflects this with audible but faint environmental noises. There's rarely a quiet moment, however, as Home's powerful and dynamic score accents the imagery with pounding tribal drums, sweeping strings, and even some guttural atonal singing. The soundtrack fills the audio field with chest-pounding musical cues, and if I have one complaint it's that the bass is sometimes too prevalent. In other instances, however, the added LFE depth gives a majestic quality to the many waterfalls and volcanoes on display. Of course, the quality of the narration by Glenn Close is of key importance, and thankfully, her distinct elocution sounds crisp, round, and only occasionally overpowered by the soundtrack.

HOME Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Sadly, Home ships without a single supplement. I'm sure it was quite a journey for director Yann Arthus-Bertand to film in so many countries, and a behind-the-scenes feature about location scouting and shot composition could have been fascinating. I would've also liked to see some background into the fact generating and verifying process. For a film so full of statistics, Home never really mentions the sources of its frequently terrifying data.

HOME Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Home is beautiful and sobering, an ode to our planet and a portent of what could befall it if we don't reverse our ways. You might not pop this one in as often as Planet Earth—the amazing imagery is tinged by the sadness of its message—but for documentary lovers or HD fans who just want another dose of eye candy, Home is worthy purchase. Highly recommended.