Apocalypse: The Second World War

Introduction

Most documentaries covering the periods of the last two great wars use black and white footage, primarily as that was the stage at which the film industry was at that point. The age of the film and the monochrome colouring, whilst something we are used to, can sometimes lead to a disconnect between what we see on the screen and what we perceive as real. It is therefore sometimes a human failing to realise just how real the events of the early 20th Century world wars really were. In recent times, it has become the fashion, albeit an expensive one, to colourise old footage in order to make it seem more immediate and real.

French filmmakers Daniel Costelle and Isabelle Clarke take a crack at documenting the Second World War through the use of colourised (or
restored) film. Originally a French production that has been sold to 150 countries, the 6 part series took 3 years to produce and at the time of writing is being transmitted on UK terrestrial TV on Channel 4. A lot of the footage will be quite familiar to war documentary fans, with new life breathed into it with the colouring process, but a large amount has not been seen before. Costelle and Clarke collated around 600 hours of footage from over 60 national and private archives and then whittled it down to a mere 6 episodes, broken down as follows:

1. Agression - Hitler's rise & the Polish invasion

2. Crushing Defeat - The Blitzkrieg & Dunkirk

3. Shock - French occupation & the Eastern offensive

4. The World Ablaze - Japan & the Resistance

5. The Noose - North Africa & Stalingrad

6. Inferno - Normandy & Hiroshima

Picture

Anyone expecting pin sharp visuals is in for a bit of a disappointment, a lot of this footage is pretty grainy or damaged and no amount of colour is going to change that. For the most part, the colouring is pretty effective and humanising the faces, actions and consequences of war. Whilst care has clearly been taken with the colouring process, it can be a bit limiting in that some elements are left in monochrome within coloured frames and some are left in black & white in their entirity. Whilst I would guess that most of the colouring is down to guesswork (although research on uniforms, etc would form the basis of this), the non-colouring of certain sections is a mystery to me when the whole focus of the series is to humanise events by adding colour in the first place.

Sound

Some excellent work by Gilbert Courtois and Phillipe Vaidie on the sound design of the series. As is the requirement for modern home entertainment, the soundtrack is in 5.1 Surround and is pretty impressive. Care has been taken to enhance the sounds and a lot of it has been re-edited to make it sound more effective. One of the techniques used was to sample the last shot in a volley of machine gun shots, for example, as the last shot had the most resonance and then rebuild the volley using only that sample, thereby making the entire volley sound that much more powerful. It can also be quite powerful when watching one of Hitler's speeches and listening to the rapt German audience respond with the Horst Wessel song or Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles - you can just imagine being in the middle of it, despite the fact you probably wouldn't want to be.

The original music as composed by Japanese musician Kenji Kawai is very impressive, a mix of synths and strings that is both very downbeat to enhance the horror of what you are witnessing to also including elements of hope where required. I also find the use of a Japanese musician to be quite inspiring.

There are no subtitle options but English subtitles are provided in places.

Extras

Making Of - a rather long and somehow not quite professional, but all the more charming for it, featurette that goes behind the scenes of the Costelle, Clarke & Co production company to show us how the series was put together. Very detailed extra, looking at the editing, colouring and sound design with some examples of footage that couldn't be included in the TV series as it was too explicit. As one of these sequences was the removal of both headless and ripped apart bodies from a tank, I found the images both disturbing but also quite important to really hammer home just what we do to each other in times of war.

Archive New Footage - another hour of raw newsreel footage in its original form of items that couldn't be included in the series, all of them French in origin. Interesting enough if you can sit through it all and it is all subtitled in English.

Overall

This is not the most original or best documentary series on World War II, the World At War easily holds that accolade, but this is a well put together series for the modern viewer. In order to hold the attention span, the series is short and pacey with quite generalised narration, although it also includes some rather random facts. I've seen lots of this footage before, some from World At War and some from other doumentary series, but it holds together in this series as the majority of it is in colour and again will hold the attention of the modern audience more fully.

Where it fails as a documentary series on World War II is that it is too short to really do the conflict real justice, but then even landmark and critically acclaimed series such as the aforementioned World At War suffers in part from that and that was a pretty long series. So in reality it's a series that attempts to provide a more modern perspective on some but not all of the major events and battles of the war, most covered within a matter of minutes whilst other topics get a bit of a longer emphasis.

As I've already said, it's not the best or the most original series, but it is pretty enjoyable and the colour footage will ensure that the younger generation won't get bored with the old monochrome stuff we're more used to. Certainly a good start for anyone looking for a rather skimpy overview on World War II, but clearly you need to move onto something more substantial to gain a greater understanding of the conflict.

Still recommended though...