The Da Vinci Code: Where It All Began (BFS)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C- Film: D
The Da Vinci Code: Where It All Began (2005)
is a dry mix of interviews with researchers who believe anything and
everything. Only recommended for those
who want to know every nook and cranny about a speculative look at the Grail
legend. The piece even goes into areas
of ghost and goblin sightings. There is
rarely any fact introduced and seems to meander around in tales of which priest
did what for how long. There is not
much of real interest to keep the listeners attention. The one enjoyable element was all the
scenery of the French countryside. It
would make anyone want to take a vacation there and enjoy all the tourist
attractions. As far as going there and
finding out any reasonable evidence of The Da Vinci Code - not much. One strange thing is one of the churches has
a devil statue which most people would not expect on a church premises. In addition, one of the believable parts may
be that the French Revolution may have leftover some valuable items that could
have been picked up over the years.
Apparently, some treasure was hidden in the churches and not found for a
long time afterwards.
Anyways, all the links are found by extensive looking and
it's like anything else; if you look hard enough coincidences can produce a
link or supposed secret message. Many
of the messages having to do with seeing 2 people in a painting that look alike
or turning something inside out or backwards to find a 'true map'.
On the technical side, the video image is anamorphically
enhanced 16:9 and shows off the color and scenery nicely. If this was a vacation video, I would be
convinced. There are many good shots of
castles, creeks, rivers, fog from dawn and some sunsets at dusk. It also shows off the village of
Rennes-le-Chateau among other places.
The detail was excellent and the colors bright. The audio was a standard Dolby Digital 2.0
Stereo mix with no real surrounds.
Being that this is a new documentary, the audio is of good quality, but
nothing spectacular. I did have a
problem with the menu, though, but just on my one DVD player. It worked fine on my Sony player and
computer DVD. I was able to play the
feature but could not see any menu screen on my Pioneer DV-37. The only extra on the disc is for a DVD-ROM
player. There is no video content, just
some documents about persons of interest and an interactive map of France and
clues of where the Holy Grail would be.
- Marcus Mazur
