Barrage – Vagabond Tales (Concert)
Picture: C
Sound: B- Extras: C Concert: C+
Think of it as Riverdance with fiddles, as the moon and
sun teams’ battle it out for music supremacy (or something like that) in Vagabond
Tales, a stage concert performance by the group Barrage. Split into two camps of gypsies, they take
the audience on a 90 minutes long journey that they’ll either love or walk out
on, because that much of this can only go on so long.
Yes, it does take talent to play the fiddle and this
critic is no expert on that instrument, and it is not easy organizing such a
production. It just seems like
everything we’ve seen like this before.
It is almost contrived when compared to a mixed dramatic film about
gypsies like The Crazy Stranger (reviewed elsewhere on this site), but
someone will be entertained by this production and should consider the disc’s
performance before going further.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is surprisingly
dull and compressed looking, as if the source was a problem and/or the means of
doing the transfer was trouble. Like
Anchor Bay’s Crime Story set, a flattening pixelization can be seen
throughout. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix
is a little better than the 2.0 Stereo version with Pro Logic surrounds, but
not by that much, so you get a strange presentation combination. Extras include a making of featurette and
Music Video, but that’s it.
- Nicholas Sheffo
