Scenic Walks Around the World: Historic Pathways Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Scenic Walks Around the World: Historic Pathways Blu-ray Movie Review

These two Reader's Digest videos offer a nice, if not very challenging, blend of history and scenery as they traverse various exotic locales around the globe.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 16, 2010

One might expect a video coming from Reader’s Digest dealing with Historic Pathways and Walks Around the World to manage just a step or two before the portentous tones of the narrator exclaim, “We’ve arrived!” Don’t ask me why, but when I was a kid, I sent away for one of the free samplers of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, which just happened to feature a selection in that volume which my parents had in its unexpurgated form. They lay the two versions down side by side and showed me just how much had been cut from the Digest version, and it really was rather alarming. It convinced me if you want to read a book, no matter how long, you might as well go for the whole megillah, not a heavily redacted adaptation. Luckily that same condensation doesn’t really seem to be a part of this largely quite interesting compilation of two previously released videos, one journeying to several exotic locations, entitled on the slipcase Historic Pathways: Machu Picchu, Umbria, The Cathar Trail, and the other ostensibly about The Great Wall of China, but which really utilizes that edifice for a rather more far ranging account of the Chinese culture and cities and villages which have risen up near the structure.

Some of the lovely scenery on display throughout these 'Great Walks.'

The first episode, somewhat confusingly called Scenic Walks Around the World on its title card and which runs a little over an hour, starts in the mid-Italian region of Umbria. Scenic Walks attempts in all three locations visited to meld history with scenic beauty and there’s a beautifully relaxed and lovely ambience to the Italy segment. Without the jaw dropping vistas of Machu Picchu or the somewhat disturbing religious history behind the Cathar Trail, we’re instead greeted by a number of cozy villages and sylvan pathways that take us by such places as the first monastery founded by St. Benedict, founder of, not to state the obvious, the Benedictine order of monks. This is easily the most low key of the three sequences making up Scenic Walks, tackling such less than weighty subjects as the different kinds of truffles found in the Umbrian soil. This is nonetheless as wonderfully scenic excursion, redolent of a sunny and slightly lazy Italian afternoon.

The next sequence tackles the alpine reaches of Machu Picchu, the incredible Inca site constructed at almost 8,000 feet above sea level in the remote Urubamba region of Peru. This segment deals passingly with the strange history of this culture, commenting on their agrarian methods and their modes of constructing such incredible architectural feats. Though most people probably associate the Incas with the location of the goal of this segment, Peru, this thrilling segment clarifies that the Incas were a mighty population of over twelve million spanning from Ecuador to Chile at the high point of their evolution. This sequence starts in Cusco, allowing the journeyers to assimilate to the incredibly high altitude while marveling at the truly astounding Inca stonework that still exists in the mountainside city. In fact Inca stonework is so incredibly precise that the narrator insists that not even a tissue paper can be inserted between any two stones. A number of gorgeously shot vistas ensues, showing us the Incas’ innovative use of terracing which allowed them to be an agrarian society in a basically vertical geology, before finally arriving at one of the most awesome locations on Earth, the unbelievable Machu Picchu.

Southwestern France is our final destination, a region once known as Occitania and home to the Cathars, a supposedly heretical sect which threatened to rupture traditional Christianity in the 13th century. Readers of The Da Vinci Code with good memories will know the Cathars play a tangential role in Dan Brown’s convoluted conspiracy theory, and some of those elements seep into this very interesting segment, which deals with the heretical aspects more in terms of the many incredibly high fortress like castles the sect retreated to once an Inquisition against them had begun. It’s actually interesting to hear about the Cathars challenging what they saw as the corruption of the Catholic church in light of the headlines of scandal touching the church (rightly or wrongly) around the world as this review is written. The Cathars’ Gnostic influenced assertion that our physical world was the creation of dark forces, indeed perhaps the Devil himself, becomes somewhat ironic as one is greeted by a number of stunning locales throughout this episode, including the mysterious Rennes-le-Château, which crops up in Dan Brown’s famous novel. The Cathar segment, however, is colored by a certain sadness and tragedy, as the history of the group, much like the Jews who holed up in Masada, is one indelibly linked to self sacrifice and death.

The second full episode on this Blu-ray, running around 50 minutes or so, is supposedly about The Great Wall of China (again somewhat confusingly titled Walks Around the World within the episode itself with a Great Wall subheading), but the episode’s focus is actually more far ranging than even that monumental structure. The episode starts with an overview with how iconic the Great Wall has become as an image, even indeed a logo, within the nation itself, a brand name that anoints everything from the police force to a popular pickup truck. Traversing a huge array of climates and regions from Lanzhou in the south to Jiayuguan in the north, The Great Wall of China covers a similarly wide variety of cultures and traditions, including everything from shrine painting to tribal festivities along the way. This episode takes the seventh century journey of mystic traveler Xuanzang as its inspiration, following that monk’s arduous explorations of some of the most vast and forbidding regions of China, including the Gobi desert. While not a lot of time is spent actually on the wall, or even right next to it, it is always there in the background, a constant reminder of China’s feudal past.

Scenic Walks Around the World: Historic Pathways Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

This Blu-ray, which arrives with enough different titles scattered throughout its cover and episodes to make your head spin, is given an acceptable if not stupendous high definition image via an AVC codec, in 1080i and with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. This is certainly much sharper than the accompanying DVD, but is really not stellar enough that it's going to set anyone's heart afire with image envy. In fact quite a bit of both of these episodes look surprisingly soft, a remnant I would guess of what appears to be their television origins. Great swaths of both episodes have a fairly blanched palette, but when we do get some color, as in the astoundingly blue train that carries us part of the way toward Machu Picchu, or the incredibly eye popping garb of some of the Chinese natives along the wall, all bedecked in glorious reds and golds, the color can indeed pop with amazing clarity and precision. Depth of field is very good throughout both presentations, with good to excellent contrast. Reader's Digest deserves kudos for jumping into the HD arena, and this effort deserves a fairly solid B.

Scenic Walks Around the World: Historic Pathways Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Unfortunately, there's not much aural innovation to be had on either of these episodes. The first, longer, segment at least offers the dulcet tones of Britisher Michael Lumsden, whose soft voice is wonderfully evocative and very easy to listen to. By contrast, the Great Wall episode gets off to a bombastic start with American narrator Michael Bragdon, who almost seems to be doing a John Wayne impersonation at times. It's a very jarring juxtaposition, to say the least. Both episodes are given a standard Dolby Digital 2.0 mix, and they're both fine as far as they go. Narration is clear, underscore is fine and rarely obtrusive, but there's really no discrete channel separation here in even a modest stereo attempt.

Scenic Walks Around the World: Historic Pathways Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No extras are offered on this Blu-ray, other than the combo pack offering a DVD and digital copy.

Scenic Walks Around the World: Historic Pathways Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Both of these episodes are above average forays into some historically rich regions. If they never quite rise to the heights of Machu Picchu itself, they're analogous to the lazy ambience I mentioned with regard to the Umbrian segment: that is, they're easy to watch, not very demanding, and interesting enough to merit at least a passing level of attention.