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Dom Robinson reviews
- Cert:
- Cat.no: 2NDVD 3115
- Running time: 42 minutes
- Year: 1985
- Pressing: 2007
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 9
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.0, Stereo (Dolby Digital 2.0)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Widescreen: 1.78:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £12.99
- Extras: Behind the Scenes, Audio Commentary, Location Subtitles
Director:
- Ron Fricke
(Baraka, Chronos)
Producers:
- Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson
Writing credits:
- constantine Nicholas and Genevieve Nicholas
Music:
- Michael Stearns
Shot in IMAx, Chronosis an exercise in time-lapse photography that effectively takes you from morning, through the day andinto the night.
Through the course of the brief running time we take in the sumptuous visuals of Lake Powell in Arizona,Stonehenge, busy New York streets, the pyramids of Egypt, the Sphinx, English castles, French castles andcathedtrals, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and so many more places that if I were to list them all you’dthink you’d clicked on to a text-based world atlas by mistake.
It’s incredible to see things like the temples of Egypt in such a state of disrepair, but then you seethe scale of them and can’t begin to imagine how they ever got built in the first place.
To review this DVD based on its film content is rather a difficult one because what’s put in front ofyou is a must-see. After all, it’s the closest most of us will get to seeing the world’s wonders and theway all the images are intercut and put to music has to be seen to be believed. It’s incredibly cleverand as it runs for 42 minutes there’s absolutely no reason not to make time in your busy schedulefor it. It certainly knocks spots off anything normal telly could throw at you of an evening.
The picture is mostly spot-on perfect. I say mostly because, for some unknown reason, when fast motionoccurs there’s a slight jitteryness as things pass by you quickly, such as a ‘flight’ through theGrand Canyon and the aforementioned Lake Powell. Maybe this was a combination of how it was filmed andof the process of transferring it to DVD since it was shot with the intention of being played on ascreen that fills the wall of the cinema and would be a treat to behold. That said, the fast-motionsections that are affected by this don’t happen too often.
The music is a triumph with everything blending together seemlessly and coming across at times asif Rick Wakeman’s been taken back to the ’70s and given all his favourite keyboards to play at oncewhile dropping a few happy pills. It’s a bit odd that the sound is just Dolby Digital 5.0, so there’sno subwoofer channel as that would be the icing on the cake, but what we have here is already a delightfultreat.
According toIMDB.com,composer Michael Stearns used a instrument called the Beam to generate many of the sounds for this film,which is 12 feet long made of extruded aluminum with 24 piano strings from 19-22 gauge. The originalinstruments it was based upon were made from cast iron and difficult to move around.
I haven’t seen the films always mentioned in the same breath as this one, Baraka, also directedby Fricke, plus Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi, but I’ve got the last twoon DVD so I’ll have to make time to watch those.
When it comes to the extras, the Behind the Scenes (30:59) section is split into four parts,starting with a look at all the artists pointing their cameras and how they got the job done. This isshown by showing static pictures while a commentary on this is given by Ron Fricke, production managerand co-editor Alton Walpole and composer Michael Stearns. The other three parts go into moredetail about the Beam, Michael Stearns and Alton Walpole.
There’s also a feature-length Audio commentary from the same three guys and, finally, theLocation Subtitles option is certainly one worth turning on as it’s used in every sceneand tells you what and where you’re looking at so that’ll eradicate any traces of “Ooh, what’sthat place. It looks familiar” happening in your household.
It may not seem like there’s a massive amount of extras but there’s plenty to be going on with andfor the film that you get on this disc, plus the fact most discounted sites like Amazon are sellingit for less than a tenner, it’s a must-buy.
There are 9 chapters to the short film which is fine for the length here and the main menu has a shortpiece of music from the film played over a static image of several shots from the film blended together,part of which can be seen on the cover.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.