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Dom Robinson reviews

The Land Girls

Distributed by
Film Four

Cat.no: VCD 0014
Cert: 12
Running time: 106 minutes
Year: 1997
Pressing: 1999
Region(s): 2, PAL
Chapters: 16 plus extras
Sound: Dolby Surround (Dolby Digital 2.0)
Languages: English
Subtitles: English for the hard of hearing
Widescreen: 2.35:1
16:9-enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD 9
Price: £19.99
Extras : Scene index, Alternate ending & deleted scenes with optional director's commentary, Behind-the-scenes, 1940's archive footage, Cast & Crew interviews, Featurette, Photo Gallery, Trailer

Director:

David Leland

Wish You Were Here

Producer:

Simon Relph

Screenplay:

Keith Dewhurst and David Leland

Music:

Cast:

Prue: Anna Friel

Mad Cows, Rogue Trader, The Tribe, TV: Brookside, Cadfael, Our Mutual Friend

Stella: Catherine McCormack

Braveheart, Dancing at Lughnasa, Loaded, Northstar

Ag: Rachel Weisz

Amy Foster, Chain Reaction, Going All the Way, I Want You, The Mummy

Joe: Steven Mackintosh

Blue Juice, Different For Girls, The Grotesque, House of America, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, London Kills Me, Prick Up Your Ears, Twelfth Night, TV: The Buddha Of Surburbia, Our Mutual Friend, Undercover Heart

H: Tom Georgeson

Downtime, A Fish Called Wanda, TV: Between the Lines, Boys From the Blackstuff, Liverpool 1, The Professionals

The Land Girls takes three girls - the practical Stella (Catherine McCormack), the prudish Ag (Rachel Weisz) and the care-free, adventurous Prue (Anna Friel) - and has them answer the call of the Women's Land Army when World War II continues apace. It's 1941 and as the men pointlessly slaughter each other out on the battlefield, the women are left to pick up the pieces around the countryside.

However, it's not just peeling spuds and milking cows that are in their remit. Sex comes to town in the form of local, handsome farmer Joe (Steven Mackintosh) who awakes their natural urges as the girls get to know one another and him. The film also follows the other loves in their lives during this time. There's also a cameo from The Young Ones' Nigel Planer in one of the closing scenes.

The picture quality of this disc is almost perfect with artifacts only showing if you're looking too closely. Sitting at the normal viewing distance you'll have no problems with the picture that has a good average bitrate of 5.9Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 9Mb/s. Also, we are treated to a great anamorphic transfer, retaining the film's original 2.35:1 theatrical aspect ratio which does the power of good for the gorgeous landscape shots throughout the film.

The sound is reproduced in Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround) as originally filmed. It all comes across fine, but it's not the sort of film that will have your neighbours banging on the walls with its gentle score and farmyard ambience. Brian Lock's gentle score sets each scene perfectly as well as gracing many of the DVD menu screens.

Extras :

Chapters and Trailer :

There are 16 chapters covering the 106 mins of the film - the standard amount for most Film Four/VCI titles and as usual it could use more. The original theatrical trailer is included.

Languages/Subtitles :

Dialogue is available in English only and for the first time since I can remember, this is a Film Four/VCI disc that actually has English subtitles.

Deleted scenes :

Ten scenes making up just over half-an-hour of extra footage. Looking at them, they would have fitted very well into the film, but as the optional director's commentary explains, some of them were cut mainly for reasons of pace and you'll find out which ones David Leland would rather have put back in.

They're split into two pages of five each, but the second page cannot be accessed initially by my Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM, with the same problem I had with the photo gallery. However, they can be accessed individually by looking at "titles" 11-20 for the ten deleted scenes. I accessed title 16 (the sixth deleted scene and the first that I couldn't access in the regular manner) and after that it brought up the second page of deleted scenes so I can view them properly.

It's interesting to hear David Leland extolling the virtues of DVD at the end of the last clip, the alternative ending, in which he says that DVD allows him to have the chance of letting the public see all these clips as extras, whereas they would normally be consigned to the vault and never seen again.

Behind the scenes :

Eight-and-a-half minutes of raw footage watching the actors hard at play. With this and the commentary from the deleted scenes, it's incredible to see how anyone can get a film made when the ground and fields are little more than mud.

Featurette :

Just over six minutes long, this contains clips from the film cropped to 16:9, with comments and chat from David Leland, Steven Mackintosh and the three girls.

Cast and Crew interviews :

Catherine McCormack, Anna Friel, Rachel Weisz, Steven Mackintosh, producer Simon Relph and director David Leland each get a few minutes to tell you about how they see the film and each other. Each person's interview is split up into three or four sections, but Leland's is unique in that it's the only interview which has each section encoded on the DVD as a separate 'title' that needs to be branched together.

1940's Archive footage :

Three minutes of original archive footage from the time this happened. It allows you to see how close the film-maker's were in achieving the look of the film.

Photo library :

A selection of stills from the series but for some reason my DVD-ROM player (Creative Dxr2) only lets me see the first one and then reverts back to the 'extras' menu even if I select the option to view the next picture. This also happened on the recent Queer As Folk DVD.

Menu :

Soft-focus shots for all the menus, but while they may be static most of them contain selections from the brilliant soundtrack.

If you like period dramas then this will be right up your street. For my taste though, while it improved in the second half of the film, it really took a long time to get going. However, for extras it can't be beat so far since there's no American DVD released yet. The only thing it needs for top-marks in the this dept. though is a feature-length director's commentary.

Other than that, if you liked the film you won't be disappointed with this release. If you haven't seen it before, rent it first.

DVD Trivia: The Fast Show's Charlie Higson appears in a cameo as the tank commander in The Tank, the sixth deleted scene.

FILM CONTENT 		: ***
PICTURE QUALITY		: ****½
SOUND QUALITY		: *****
EXTRAS			: ****½
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: ****

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999

Check out VCI's and Film Four's Web site.

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