4K Ultra HD – Edit DE – Capelight Pictures – 148 min – 06 April 2023
Video format
• Intermediate Master: 4K
• Standard HDR: Dolby Vision
• Ratio: 2.39
Soundtrack
• German Dolby Atmos
• English DTS-HD MA 5.1
• French (Parisian) Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles
• English
• French
It is brought to the attention of our dear readers as well as the viewing equipment specified and used by each MaG team tester, SVOD tests are performed with the minimum flow required on each platform. Moreover, the images in the article are not representative of the source tested.
WORK – The Real Face of the Great War
During the First World War, in the front line on the Western front, Paul and his comrades saw the initial euphoria motivating in despair and fear when they found themselves defending their lives at the bottom of the trenches...
Already that it surpasses the previous adaptations (from 1930 and 1979) and resonates with the atrocities of the war in Ukraine, this German-speaking version of the famous pacifist book dErich Maria Note impose as a masterful anti-war work, where the horrors and absurdity of armed conflict (totally useless) are described as well as reconstructed. And whether it is during the daily banalities where the comradeship of the soldiers emerges (the actors are very involved), or during the chaining of violence where savagery unfolds without restraint, it is with a visceral realism that this « requiem for a massacre » Testimony. Prove!
IMAGE – In the trench hell
If the shadow of death is flat (the nightmare paintings where smoke, dust and dirt have become home), the photograph of James Friend The narrative of naturalistic visions so that beauty (nature and life) still survives the monstrosity (war machine and death).
The coldness of the colorimetric palette with deliberately desaturated colors is punctually « heated » by some welcome primarys (flame, green forest), the details are constantly highlighted (cf. surgical accuracy of tired faces, crushed skins, damaged uniforms, bodily injuries, muddy floors and damaged buildings), the contrast rate has a nice firmness and the light sources (explosions, daylight, inflamed liquid of flame-throwers, interior lighting of Wagon 2419D) are displayed with always opportune brightness.
Compared to the Blu-ray included in this mediabook edition, the images here are more impacting thanks to a higher HEVC compression (no artifact on the horizon), an even more robust pique, more balanced shades (including grey blue tones during dark scenes) and increased brightness.
SON – The musard armistice bugger
While the gusts of machine guns and the rumbling of the guns break at regular intervals the elegiac silence of expectations and observations, the disconcerting music of Volker Bertelmann (clear crates and three electronic notes) comes to shake our guts when it evokes the combat sirens.
To be preferred for immersion, the VO Dolby Atmos takes advantage of a dynamic that flies as soon as it can, of assuming basses, of vigorous spatialization that engulfs the back (the chaos in the no mans land) and the heights (the rustling of the trees, the hovering of the monoseats) over the duration, of a voluminous score and of voices whose clarity is never attenuated.
Far from being as combative as insufficiently armed (a less warlike dynamic and a somewhat dull LFE channel), the VF Dolby Digital 5.1 cannot oppose its 3D friend.
CONCLUSION – Facing Death
Transformed into cannon flesh and completely overwhelmed by events, the frightened soldiers are ready to do anything to get out of a hell that is not theirs. As for spectators, the A/V performances delivered by the 4K Ultra HD are so striking that the death of a man will always be experienced as a tragedy and the arrival of the « battles » I must be afraid.
Artistic note
8.5
Video quality
9.5
Audio quality
10
0
But no, that means I'm seeing it in the night.