7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
German soldiers see a summer mission of 1942 turn hellish when the ferocious Russian winter sets in.
Starring: Dominique Horwitz, Thomas Kretschmann, Jochen Nickel, Sebastian Rudolph, Dana VávrováWar | 100% |
Drama | 58% |
Foreign | 34% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
German: LPCM 2.0
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region B, C (locked)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Joseph Vilsmaier's "Stalingrad" (1993) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Arrow Films. The only supplemental feature on the disc is a short archival featurette. In German, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B/C "locked".
Retreating
Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Joseph Vilsmaier's Stalingrad arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Arrow Films.
The high-definition transfer has been struck from the same master Hen's Tooth Video's accessed when they prepared their release of Stalingrad for the U.S. market. Unsurprisingly, the technical presentation is quite inconsistent.
There are traces of light denoising and sharpening corrections throughout the entire film. Especially during close-ups the effects of these adjustments are very easy to see (see screencapture #12). Grain is not resolved well because it is frequently overwhelmed by the electronic sharpening (see screencapture #18). On a mid-size screen (50'-55') the effect is not overly distracting, but the larger your screen is, the easier it will be for you to see it. Because of these adjustments image depth also suffers (see how flat the close-ups are in screencaptures #5 and 12). This being said, contrast levels remain stable. Generally speaking, colors also remain relatively stable. Overall image stability is good. Finally, there are no serious encoding anomalies to report in this review. All in all, the Blu-ray release offers some obvious improvements when one compares it with the old DVD release, but the film can look better in high-definition. However, given the fact that it has already been released in the two largest English-friendly markets, it is probably fair to say that for now this will be the best Stalingrad would look on Blu-ray. (Note: This is a Region-B/C "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B/C or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).
There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: German LPCM 2.0 (with small portions of Russian). For the record, Arrow Video have provided optional English subtitles for the main feature.
The lossless track is very good. During the battle scenes depth and clarity are excellent, while Enjott Schneider's score easily breathes in all the right places (see the footage from Italy early into the film). The dialog is crisp, stable, and easy to follow. Also, there is no distracting background hiss, pops, cracks, audio dropouts, or digital distortions to report in this review. The English translation is very good.
It is great to finally have this classic war film on Blu-ray. I have to say, however, that it can and it should look a lot better in high-definition. I am going to recommend this release because it offers some very obvious improvements over older DVD releases of the film, but I hope that at some point in the future we would see a better technical presentation. RECOMMENDED.
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