Living Landscapes: Sacred Canyons of the American Southwest Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Living Landscapes: Sacred Canyons of the American Southwest Blu-ray Movie Review

The bizarrely alien worlds of southern Utah are explored in this strong Living Landscapes release.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 29, 2010

Southern Utah is one of the most uniquely alien environments in the United States. Is there any other locale which could enchant the likes of John Ford while simultaneously looking at times like it was doppelgänger for the moon or at the very least some peyote induced hallucination out of a Carlos Castaneda novel? I have a personal, very emotional, connection with this region, having grown up in Salt Lake City and spent many a vacation in Canyonlands, Bryce, Zion and Arches, one of the great quadrumvirates of national parks any one state is privileged to contain within its borders. The common wisdom is that these parks are interchangeable, one offering pretty much what the next might, but as this 2006 Living Landscapes release Sacred Canyons of the Southwest makes beautifully clear, though generally strewn with odd sandstone structures, southern Utah is a remarkably diverse ecology and home to some of the most glorious sights the United States of America has to offer.

Dawn breaks over Southern Utah

Michael Heumann’s Living Landscapes series almost always does a lush and inviting job of presenting a given environment, and that tradition is firmly upheld in Sacred Canyons of the Southwest. Starting with some evocative shots of dawn breaking over various peaks and bizarre looking rock outcroppings, Sacred Canyons of the Southwest sets up a very calming, meditative mood with some relatively long pans across oddly beautiful vistas. That all comes crashing to a halt with a sudden lightning storm, with some incredible imagery of lightning bolts erupting from the heavens and touching down in this alien territory, made all the more visceral by the extremely robust rumble of thunder spilling out from the subwoofer. An enchanting series of rain imagery follows this heavenly fireworks display, with one spectacularly beautiful shot of rain droplets cascading over a foliage encrusted cliff. The angle on this shot is quite dramatic as the droplets almost pierce the camera lens as they’re persuaded by gravity to fall just a little bit further.

For those who may be under the mistaken apprehension that southern Utah is nothing other than a barren wasteland, some of the footage in Sacred Canyons of the Southwest may come as more than a bit of a surprise. One of the loveliest set of images, and one which Heumann returns to a couple of times, is a verdant valley fed by a meandering stream, which Heumann must have filmed as autumn was beginning to break. There amid quite a few bushes and trees is an amazing display of almost New England worthy fall color, with some brilliant oranges and reds complementing the ruddy color of the sandstone formations in and around this sudden oasis. And while a lot of the imagery of Sacred Canyons does indeed exploit the bleak, lunar terrain of the region, even there we’re offered unbelievable beauty, with graceful arches one moment, and then dilapidated, wind blown towers that look like ruined castles the next. One bizarre outcropping even looks like an ancient statue of an Egyptian pharaoh, carved by the elements over vast millennia.

What is noticeably absent from this Living Landscapes release is an abundance of wildlife. We get occasional fleeting shots of birds, but that’s about it. As someone who has spent a great deal of time in the region, I can tell you that southern Utah is home to an incredible (and sometimes quite aggressive) host of species, from coyote to prairie dog and even the occasional antelope and elk. It would have been fun to have seen a few of these animals traipsing about this strange and forebidding landscape. The ambient soundtrack does contain quite a few bird calls, though they don’t seem keyed to specific scenes, as sometimes is the case with the Living Landscapes series.

In fact, for the first time in my experience in reviewing these titles, there’s actually at least one difference between the ambient noise and ambient noise mixed with music tracks. Pay attention at around the 40 minute mark and the ambient only track contains just the requisite wind noise which makes up the bulk of that soundtrack. On the music mix, there’s the brilliantly shimmering sound of raindrops touching down on a windswept valley, mixed with some evocative Native American flute music. That set of sounds does seem to be closer to what the imagery is showing us, as light rain does appear to be falling.

Almost all of the Living Landscapes series have been beautiful to look at and often quite inviting to listen to, but few have had the magical, indeed almost mystical, pull of this southern Utah expedition. I’m more than willing to admit that some of my reaction must be tied up with my childhood memories of having spent so much time there with my family poking around rock outcroppings and discovering ancient Native American cliff dwellings, but I think that even a jaded urban sensibility will find a rare degree of beauty in Sacred Canyons of the Southwest. This is an ambient television outing that urges the viewer to breathe deeply and relax into some of the most unusual topography the planet has to offer. It becomes very easy to better understand the sacred in everyday life when that’s accomplished.

Living Landscapes: Sacred Canyons of the American Southwest Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Though originally released "way back" in 2006, Sacred Canyons of the Southwest boasts one of the Living Landscapes series' stronger images, with a nice AVC encoded 1080i transfer in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. This follows the Living Landscapes trope of slow, sometimes glacial movement over beautiful terrain, and detail can be amazingly impressive as very subtle changes take place. Notice in the opening shots how shafts of light almost assume solid qualities from time to time as shades of white and beige play with each other against a sandstone backdrop. The shots of the sun peeking out over the mountains is similarly glorious, with really amazing variations in light quality. Colors are nicely robust, though the bulk of them tend toward the red-orange side of things, as is probably to be expected. Things are very sharp indeed in both medium range and close-up footage. Once again we do have the minor anomaly of shimmer on some leaves, but that was the only noticeable artifact in an otherwise very enjoyable hour of video.

Living Landscapes: Sacred Canyons of the American Southwest Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sacred Canyons of the Southwest offers two lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks, one with ambient noise only and the other with at least some very evocative Native American Flute music by Steve Hacker, if also some less evocative generic synth and piano musings by Gary Malkin. As seems to be the case with a lot of these Living Landscapes releases, the ambient track doesn't appear to be actual recordings of what we're seeing at any given moment. In fact almost all of this particular ambient track is an admittedly immersive recording of wind, which whips through the surrounds and gives a nice aural experience of a desert sirocco. As is mentioned above, there's at least one major difference in the ambient sounds between the ambient only track and the music mixed with ambient noise track. The music track does seem to feature more varied sounds a lot of the time. Both of these tracks, while lossy, offer good separation and a very robust low end which is especially present in the thunderstorms featured on this outing.

Living Landscapes: Sacred Canyons of the American Southwest Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this budget priced disc.

Living Landscapes: Sacred Canyons of the American Southwest Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I love southern Utah and it was a joy to reexperience it in Sacred Canyons of the Southwest. If you've never been there, or only seen it in John Ford films, this is a nice, low key way to get to know the region, which is certainly one of the strangest places you've ever set eyes on. If you have been there, Sacred Canyons is a slow, relaxing trip through this remarkable territory, with some glorious imagery and nicely evocative music. In the niche world of ambient television releases, Sacred Canyons of the Southwest is recommended.