The Impressionists (British TV Mini-Series/Koch Vision)
Picture:
C+ Sound: B- Extras: C+ Episodes: C+
It took
me a while to get through the recent British TV mini-series The Impressionists (2006) produced by
the BBC. Julian Glover is cast as an
older Claude Monet circa 1920 looking back on how he and his fellow painters
took on the firmly planted French Art circles with their then-rejected but
highly innovative canvas painting movement.
This included Frederic Bazille and Auguste Renoir.
The cast
or relative unknowns is not bad, but I thought the teleplay by Sarah Woods and
Colin Swash just never clicks or gives us any true insight into the movement,
men or even period. It sadly boils down
into a formula tale like we have seen often before and that means a missed
opportunity. Too bad Glover was not more
prominent, because maybe he was the way to tell the story directly and without
the flashback pretense.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 is shot in early digital High Definition and
is soft and limited in this downtrade throughout. Color is not bad, but not great either. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo does have
healthy Pro Logic surrounds, but music is mixed and ambient sounds are not
bad. The only extra is the 55-minutes
Claude Monet documentary “Painter Of
Light” that is as interesting as the actual series.
- Nicholas Sheffo
