Visions Of France (Special Interests/Travel)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: B-
The fourth HDTV Visions series installment of a
major country from Acorn Media and WLIW is Visions Of France, a new
two-DVD set covering the great country and all of its lands and architecture,
both past and present. The first volume
is Provence, the second, The Riviera. The first is more about the land structures, natural and
civilized, while the second has famous landmarks like Monte Carlo, Cannes, Nice
and other special locations that continue to keep the country among the top in
the world.
Produced in 2004, the show fares well against the Italy,
England and Greece installments, though the Italy set is still the best to date
for just going (no pun intended) that extra mile. Nevertheless, with so much anti-French propaganda all over the
U.S. these days, seeing the real France is refreshing, even more so than the
many (and many bad) feature films that seem to constantly come out of the
country of late. Each main show runs
about an hour and is as rich as the series has established itself to be so
far. Visions Of France lives up
to its name because it cuts through the distorted world view the country gets
too often and remains us of its constant innovations, while still holding on to
its legacy.
The anamorphically enhanced 16 X 9/1.78 X 1 image has some
detail troubles for whatever reason, but the color is very nice throughout as
was the case with Visions Of Greece.
On the non-anamorphic, similarly framed extra footage, detail is a
larger issue and it is odd that it would not get the same treatment. The sound is Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
throughout and has no surround information, despite a really pleasant music
score. For a recent production, that is
odd. Outside of the extra footage for
both segments running just over 20 minutes each, there are no other
extras. Anyone interested in even
seeing some of France cannot go wrong with Visions Of France. The Acorn Media-release for WLIW is at least
thorough.
- Nicholas Sheffo
