Bridge on the
River Kwai (Region 2 PAL Superbit)
Picture: B+
Sound: B Extras: D Film: A
Sometimes the greatest films ever made are the ones that
you only see a few times. Not because
you do not really want to see them that often, but rather because when you do
see it, you experience something very real, very powerful. That experience then becomes something
precious and by overseeing it, can take away from that power. David Lean is responsible for quite a few of
these spectacles and was on a serious roll in the late 50’s and 60’s with three
films that are stand-alone masterpieces.
Those films are Bridge on the
River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia,
and Doctor Zhivago. All three are unique in their own way and
while they share similarities by being grandiose and epic in nature, they are
also quite distinctly different.
Keep also in mind that between these three films Lean won
a total of 19 Academy awards! It is no
wonder Steven Spielberg imitates him so much, but falls short. Bridge
on the River Kwai was issued to home video in the U.S. in two separate DVD
editions. Both were identical with the
exception of the limited edition version containing a second disc of extras and
a cooler packaging design. However,
outside the U.S. you can obtain a Region 2 edition that is part of Columbia
TriStar’s Superbit catalog and is the subject of this review, which will be
compared to the Region 1 DVD.
The transfer on the Region 1 DVD was fairly good when it
was released a few years back, but looking at it again you can see a bit of
softness and the darker portions of the film do not hold up too well. The sound was available on that disc in
Dolby Digital Stereo and also a remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 that took some of the
spillover sound and turned it into a relatively weak rear mix. The surrounds sound more like a matrixed
rear channel that is spread into two channels, which in essence sounds like Pro
Logic or 3.0 configurations. The .1 LFE
channel was barely distinguishable as well.
Picture quality for a film like this is imperative and The Bridge on the River Kwai, like the
other epics mentioned above are meant to be seen BIG! If you are viewing it on a 32” TV you are not really going to
capture the film and it’s magnitude quite like in a theater no matter how good
the DVD quality is. That being said,
the film can still look staggering and accessible on a TV set, but keep in mind
that you are not getting the ‘experience’ that you would otherwise. The
Bridge on the River Kwai was shot in CinemaScope in its original, a very
wide 2.55 X 1 aspect ratio and also received 70mm blow-up prints for theaters
capable of doing the larger frame format.
Although in 1957 at it’s release there were very few theaters doing
such, but that would change during the 60’s and Lawrence was straight out shot in 70mm Super Panavision.
Finally the region 2 PAL Superbit brings back some of the
depth and detail that was missing on the Region 1 discs. By utilizing more of the disc space and
having less compression the film looks solid.
Blacks are much darker and deeper, while colors contain more vibrancy
and overall fidelity. The difference is
noticeable even to someone not necessarily looking for it. Jack Hildyard’s Academy Award winning
cinematography seems to put you right into the film with its third person
perspective keeping us within the framework of the film. This is possibly his finest work and would
only be outdone by Freddie Young a few years later when he captured Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence
could quite possible by the most amazing use of camera of all time,
certainly for the large format 70mm, but it has few rivals for its scope and
breadth. Likewise that film was issued
as a Superbit Edition from Columbia TriStar and looked far better than the
earlier DVD issues, and the newly mixed DTS mix for that film is most welcome!
Also upgraded is the sound since the Superbit goes a notch
above by including a DTS 5.1 mix along with a weaker Dolby Digital 5.1
mix. The Dolby audio track seems
identical to the Region 1 5.1 mix, but the DTS offers a much smoother, tighter,
and more refined mix. While it is not
necessarily a huge improvement there is no doubt that it is the preferred
playback choice. Ambient sound seems to
be heard more distinguished in the rear channels and the overall range seems
much better. By comparison the Dolby
mix seems flat and lacks the overall fidelity needed to drive this film. While I get tired sometimes of repeating how
much better DTS sounds than Dolby, I never get tired of hearing the differences
no matter how great or small. Here,
they are subtle, but certainly noticeable and much appreciated.
What also helps the picture and sound is the fact that the
DVD is spread across two DVD’s making the compression factor have little
potential from holding this disc back.
The 2.55 X 1 PAL-encoded anamorphic transfer certainly looks great for
being this old and shows the capability of CinemaScope. You will of course need a DVD player that is
capable of playing Region 2 DVD’s here in the U.S. and also have a machine that
has a smooth PAL to NTSC converter that enables the picture to display
properly, but the more vertical lines of the PAL format make detail look far
sharper in this case. I have a hard
time believing that the transfer though is 2.55 X 1, as it looks more like your
basic scope 2.35 X 1 ratio. If that is
the case then there has been some minor cropping off the image.
For some reason this DVD seems to be a tough one to get
inside the U.S., or at least get for a reasonable price. It’s impossible to not want to recommend a
film this great and of course the better the presentation the more appealing,
so it would seem at this point in time that this is the winner and the version
worth putting in your collection. While
light on extras since it is a Superbit, the quality makes up for all that and
then some.
As far as the film itself is concerned it’s practically
one of the most imitated films of all time, especially in the prisoner/war
genre of filmmaker that would become more popular in the 1960’s with The Great Escape (reviewed elsewhere on
this site). Likewise with Lawrence, Bridge is a testosterone driven film with no females and the only
concern is survival. If you want to see
the more romantic side of David Lean check out Summertime or even Ryan’s
Daughter (a 70mm film desperate to be on the DVD format whenever Warner
Bros. gets to it). Personally, I would
prefer the better quality over some of the perks that the Region 1 Collectors
Edition offers, at least until something better comes along, which might be
soon with a 50th birthday coming up for the film. Let’s hope!
- Nate Goss
