Review of Gallipoli History In The Depths

Introduction

The battle for Gallipoli in the Dardanelles is one of the most famous and notorious of the Great War, fought long before the days of smart weapons and air superiority, when sheer mass of men won battles.

In this case some 500,000 on both sides men lost their lives in the fierce fight for the heavily fortified strategically important entrance to the Black Sea.

Video

The video is presented in 4:3 full-frame and is of mixed quality. There is plenty of footage from the war, which as you might expect for film stock approaching 90 years old, is of generally poor quality, however it is very interesting. The modern footage of the area and wrecks is much better, although it suffers from grain and isn`t especially detailed.

Audio

The soundtrack is presented in Dolby Digital Mono and consists of a quiet score and the narration - added to buy first hand accounts of events from survivors of the war (read by actors - obviously there aren`t very many survivors of the Great War still alive).

The dialogue is clear and understandable at all times.

Features

There are no extras on the disc - the Menu system only offers "Play" and "Scene Selection".

Conclusion

Most people`s knowledge of the Gallipoli campaign comes from history lessons at school, or perhaps from watching the Mel Gibson movie "Gallipoli" (which features Jean Michel Jarre`s Oxygene as its soundtrack).

This programme features some very interesting footage from the war, particularly of the naval battle, which is combined with modern footage of the numerous wrecks lying in the straights - sunk by either artillery fire or mines.

Running for 52 minutes, this documentary is quite interesting and follows the war from the initial sea campaign to the bloody land battle which proved so costly. The inclusion of so much footage from the war adds to the interest, and makes a nice change from reading historical accounts of the war.