DVD Review: Arnhem A Bridge Too Far

The DVD contains 2 features. The first is a documentary about 1hr 30mins long, and the second is a short newsreel.
I saw this after visiting the British Airborne museum in Oosterbeek and having seen the film ‘A Bridge Too Far’. The documentary uses real footage and accounts of eye witnesses but is mainly narrated with the narrator standing at the relevant locations. The documentary was certainly very informative, but lacked anything that really grabbed the imagination of the viewer. Some of the video clips were repeated (obviously limited by what was available).
Much of this was filmed in the form of a guided tour of the area and showed those on the tour in the background. The camera was focused on the narrator a bit too much where as it would have been more interesting to leave him talking but let the camera move around and show some of the things that were being described, or different perspectives. One particular point I noticed was where we were told ‘you can see the Rhine behind me’, whereas all we could really see was the narrator. Whilst the operation itself was not a success it was interesting to hear the effect that it had on the moral of the German army and the accounts and thoughts of some of the local residents and what happened to them. This is the one thing in the DVD that I found to be new information rather than reinforcing what I already knew.

Whilst very informative, you need to have a strong interest in learning about the events to keep interested in watching the DVD.