Haven (TV Mini-Series)
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: D Episodes: C+
Despite its ambition, John Gray’s Haven cannot find
a fresh take on The Holocaust, despite Natasha Richardson cast as Ruth Gruber;
a heroine that saved a thousand lives from a Nazi hell. Unfortunately, the story is too choppy, use
of color photography all the time badly cut with actual Holocaust footage and
with bad timing to boot.
William Petersen, Martin Landau and Anne Bancroft are also
part of the cast, but even their occasional presence cannot save the 190
minutes from imploding on itself. The
production is somewhat ambitious and I believe most of this happened as the
script says, but it drags it out dangerously as to make something so important
so uninteresting. That has a tendency
to trivialize important history. For
completists only.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image looks to have
been shot on digital HD video of some kind, but shows its limits in haziness on
too many occasions, accompanied by a lack of detail and new monochrome that
looks like color badly drained out. The
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has Pro Logic surrounds, but nothing special here
either. There are no extras.
- Nicholas Sheffo
