Sophie Scholl: The Final Days Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		5.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days Blu-ray Movie Review

My colleague Dr. Svet Atanasov covered UK label Drakes Avenue Pictures' BD-50 of Marc Rothemund's third feature film Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005) nearly sixteen years ago. To read Svet's opinions on the film and his evaluation of that disc's a/v presentations, please refer to the link above.

Members of the resistance embrace.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Zeitgeist Films' 1080p Blu-ray is taken from a recent 4K restoration completed by Berlin-based studio X-Verleih. I was unable to locate any details about the restoration from X-Verleih's website. In any case, the image looks great throughout. Sophie Scholl appears in its original theatrical exhibition ratio of 1.85:1 on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. I analyzed the transfer shot by shot on a smaller screen after watching it on my QLED. I could only see maybe one film-related artifact in the entire presentation. The picture is consistently filmic and textured. Grain is omnipresent and never appears chunky. There's little sunlight in Sophie Scholl. Much of the picture takes place in dank interiors. The cell where Sophie (Julia Jentsch) and Else Gebel (Johanna Gastdorf) stay is either gray or sage depending on the light level. (See Screenshot #6.) The color on walls, wallpaper, and buildings is often either pale green or grey-green, which matches the Nazis' uniforms. Either a desk light or sunlight coming through a side window provide illumination in Police Inspector Robert Mohr's (Alexander Held) office. See screen capture #s 3, 8, and 14-16. Svet cited strong video noise and boosted contrast levels as his only two gripes on the UK BD transfer. Fortunately, those issues are not really present here. Compression is excellent. Zeitgeist has encoded the feature at an average video bitrate of 35941 kbps.

The two-hour film has received ten scene selections.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Zeitgeist has supplied a German DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix (1558 kbps, 24-bit) as the lone sound track. Drakes Avenue provided a German LPCM 2.0 Stereo track (48kHz/16-bit) on its 2008 Blu-ray. Dialogue is clean, legible, and crisply presented. Ambience is clearly heard from the fronts to the rears for scenes in the streets of Munich and in the university's atrium. The music by Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek has a nice reverb on the surrounds. I share Svet's wish that a Blu-ray of Sophie Scholl should come with a 5.1 option. Indeed, the movie was recorded and mixed in Dolby Digital. Zeitgeist's 2005 press kit lists Dolby SR. The German, Holland, and Scandinavian DVDs all have DD 5.1 tracks.

The optional white English subtitles appear in a sans serif font and are quite readable (see Screenshot #24).

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

All extras (except for a recent trailer) are encoded in MPEG-2 and date from the DVD era.

• Deleted & Alternate Scenes (36:46, 480i) - there are eleven excised and alternate scenes:
  
  1. The 6th Flyer
  2. Late Night Stranger
  3. Last Letter
  4. Searched by Else
  5. Struggle and Loss
  6. Remembering Fritz
  7. Cigarettes and Freedom
  8. Christoph on Trial
  9. Hans on Trial
  10. Sophie on Trial
  11. Attorney's Defense
  12. Parents at the Trial
  13. Thomas Mann SFX
  
  There is also a "PLAY ALL" option. These additional scenes present extra dialogue and footage compared to corresponding scenes that appear in the final cut. The scenes are extensions to what is incorporated into the finished film. They appear in non-anamorphic widescreen. In German, with imposed English subtitles.
  
  

• BEHIND-THE-SCENES: The Production (54:57, 480i) - this nearly hour-long program is known as "The Making of Sophie Scholl" on other home video editions. The doc is divided into seven chapters:
  
  1. Credits/Scholl's Apartment
  2. The Drawing Studio
  3. The University
  4. Bavaria Studio
  5. City Hall
  6. Prison
  7. Guillotine
  
  There is also a "PLAY ALL" option. There's lots of B-roll and behind-the-scenes footage. In particular, there are side-by-side comparisons showing the camera crew on one image and what they are filming on an adjacent image. In addition, there's footage showing a producers and director meeting, a trial scene, extras, and various other scenes. Interviewed are producer/director Marc Rothemund, producer/writer Fred Breinersdorfer, unit manager Joelle Saba Suys, producer Sven Burgemeister, producer Christoph Müller, production designer Jana Karen-Brey, and production manager Patrick Brandt. We also hear from star Julia Jentsch and actor Alexander Held. Additional speakers and interviewees include a town mayor and Protestant priest. Breinersdorfer gives mini-bios and descriptions of the real-life characters. Rothemund is shown directing several scenes. Presented in non-anamorphic widescreen. All spoken words are in German. The English subtitles are burned into the video.

• Historical Interviews with Relatives and Associates of Sophie Scholl (56:54, 480i) - the first interviews are with Franz Müller, White Rose member, and Walter Gebel, nephew of Else Gebel, who sit next to each other. The majority of the interview is spent with Müller, who discusses the Scholls and distribution of leaflets. He remembers the defendants' counselor at the trial and the German people's impressions of Roland Freisler. Gebel speaks briefly about his aunt's recollections of Sophie Scholl. These interviews last for 19:52. The next interview is with Will Mohr, the son of police inspector Robert Mohr. Will was fourteen at the time his father worked for the Gestapo. He shares his memories about the Night of Broken Glass. Will is also candid about his father and what relations between them were like. This is the shortest interview at 7:22. The last interview is with Elisabeth Hartnagel, sister of Sophie and Hans Scholl. Elisabeth describes in detail what childhood was like for the Scholls. She also offers concrete memories of her siblings. Especially interesting is when she reminisces about the Hitler Youth and White Rose. This interview concludes with archival trial footage. It lasts 30:27 altogether. All interviews are letterboxed. In German, with compulsory English subtitles.

• Re-Release Trailer (1:55, 1080p) - Zeitgeist Films' reissue trailer for Sophie Scholl: The Final Days presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with a DTS-HD MA 2.0 track (16-bit). In German, with English subtitles.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I recall seeing a trailer of Sophie Scholl: The Final Days in an indie theater and thought that the film would be different than it turned out to be. I was expecting more of a thriller but the picture is an interrogation-focused drama. A bulk of it is set in Inspector Mohr's office where he probes Sophie about her alleged involvement with anti-Nazi leaflets. The film utilizes a lot of shot/reverse-shot setups. Julia Jentsch manages to hit all the right notes in a courageous performance that never veers off course. Alexander Held and André Hennicke's supporting roles as Mohr and Freisler are completely laudable, too. It would seem that they engage in too many histrionics at times but I believe that's likely what their historical personages were like. I hope that we get an English-friendly version of Michael Verhoeven's Die weisse Rose (The White Rose, 1982), which covers much of the same period. Zeitgeist Films has done a terrific job of transferring a recent 4K master to Blu-ray. A VERY SOLID RECOMMENDATION.