The Great War: The Complete History of World War I
While World War II has practically monopolized the TV channels dedicated to military history, the drama and tragedy of World War I has been often overlooked, given scant attention, or viewed only in relation to World War II as a cause.The Great War: The Complete History of World War Imakes a contribution to remedy that by taking an in-depth, year-by-year look at the war to end all wars. Five programs delve into what happened each year the war played out, and another program examines the developments in land warfare, sea, and air power technology. The amount of original footage presented here is impressive, most of it cleaned up and restored as much as is possible, give the aged condition of the film. However, much of the narrative structure seems disjointed and unmatched to the footage, and the sound effects are somewhat puzzling and amateurish. A line of soldiers firing rifles is accompanied with the sound of a machine gun, while a massive howitzer shoots off in silence. Some of the visuals leave a lot to be desired as well, as an overview of battles in Eastern France presents explosions on a topographical map, but with no lines of battle drawn or movements displayed it’s impossible to get a sense of the armies’ relative positions to each other. Patrick Boniface’s narration strikes the appropriate tone, but the reality is that having only one narrator to cover the scope of the program gets a little monotonous. The resulting experience is a little like sitting in a history lecture: it’s very informative, and the images are interesting to take in, but it remains distant and academic. As a result many viewers are unlikely to be drawn in any emotional way and may find the end result disappointing. It might be best to approach this one in a purely educational sense; you will certainly learn a lot about the particulars of the war, but it probably won't engage you much beyond that.--Daniel Vancini