6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Four infantrymen on the Western Front suffer the everyday hardships and insanity of trench warfare.
Starring: Fritz Kampers, Gustav Diessl, Hans-Joachim Möbis, Claus Clausen, Jackie MonnierForeign | 100% |
Drama | 81% |
Romance | 20% |
War | 12% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.19:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.2:1
German: LPCM Mono
English
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region B (A, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
G.W. Pabst's "Westfront 1918" a.k.a. "Westfront 1918: Vier von der Infanterie" arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka Entertainment. The only bonus feature on the disc is a new interview with Jan-Christopher Horak from UCLA Film & Television Archive. The release also arrives with an illustrated booklet featuring a new essay by Philip Kemp, alongside rare archival imagery. In German, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".
The front
Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.19:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, G.W. Pabst's Westfront 1918 arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.
The release is sourced from the same 2K restoration that Deutsche Kinemathek completed in Germany and Criterion used when they prepared the recent U.S. release. However, there are some pretty drastic discrepancies between the Region-B and Region-A releases. Basically, here black levels are elevated so much that there is actually plenty of detail and a good range of nuances that are lost. The indoor and especially the nighttime footage looks quite heavy, with very strong blacks that essentially create crushing effects (see screencaptures #8 and 12). The elevation was likely introduced during the encoding because I am not seeing any traces of additional remastering work. This being said, the lighter/daylight footage tends to look quite good pleasing good, and in some areas the overall balance actually looks quite good (see screencapture #4). So the tonal shifts are unfortunate because the basics of the restoration remain solid. My score is 3.75/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free player in order to access its content).
There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: German LPCM 1.0. (with a few short exchanges in French). Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.
I mentioned in our review of the U.S. release that there is some 'thinning' and clipping in the high-frequencies, and now having seen this release I am pretty confident stating that the audio during the battles was basically recorded with the obvious limitations. It is of course possible that time has also exacerbated some of the anomalies, but the basic characteristics have native qualities.
This Region-B release of G.W. Pabst's Westfront 1918 is sourced from the 2K restoration that Deutsche Kinemathek completed in Germany and Criterion used when they prepared the recent U.S. release of the film. However, I find the technical presentation somewhat frustrating because on this release the film could look very dark, with the nighttime footage actually producing some obvious crushing. If you can play Region-A discs, my advice to you is to consider picking up Criterion's release, which also has a better selection of supplemental features.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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