Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product details
|
Reviews
REGION 2 DVD - DUTCH IMPORT - OFFICIAL RELEASE.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
There is no indication that this film is with Dutch subtitles, which means it is sold under false pretences. Even the case is in Dutch. My enjoyment of the film was spoilt (not just marred) by these intrusive subtitles spread across the screen. Normally Amazon are pretty accurate with their product descriptions. They've slipped up on this occasion, though, and the customer has paid the price - in both senses.
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
What a great pity this film is so difficult to get hold of on Region 2. It deserves much more credit than it has received. It is not like other films covering the Great War, showing scenes of senseless slaughter in the mud of the trenches. No this film is much more subtle. It concentrates on the terrible injuries that can be inflicted on the mind. The horror these men were exposed to is unimaginable to us now. It is this unseen face of war that the film concentrates on, and it succeeds very well.
The film is based on the first book in Pat Barker's monumental Regeneration trilogy, this being the first of those books. It is set in Craiglockhart Hospital in Scotland where the sympathetic psychologist Dr WHR Rivers carries out pioneering work with soldiers suffering varying degrees of shell shock. Amongst those being treated were the now famous war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, played respectively by Stuart Bunce and James Wilby. Sassoon later wrote his wonderful autobiographical work "Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man", which covered his experiences of the trenches. In the film we see Jonathan Pryce in what I feel to have been his best role as Rivers. We see him build relationships with these soldiers through his methods of communication. They become true friends and he feels their loss keenly if any die when they return to the trenches. In Barkers series of books Rivers becomes one of the finest characters in modern literature and that is how the director Gillies MacKinnon portrays him.
In this film we do not see the action of such classic WW1 films as "All Quiet On the Western Front" and "Paths of Glory". This is a very subdued affair, but it is equally thought provoking. Anyone interested in counselling will find this film and the book it is based on fascinating. It is a film that deserves to be far better known. A frank and honest look at the side of war that was once convieniently ignored. Victims not as well known as Sassoon and Owen were also damaged as surely as any bullet to the brain. This film is a fine elegy to those thousands of forgotten men.
The film is based on the first book in Pat Barker's monumental Regeneration trilogy, this being the first of those books. It is set in Craiglockhart Hospital in Scotland where the sympathetic psychologist Dr WHR Rivers carries out pioneering work with soldiers suffering varying degrees of shell shock. Amongst those being treated were the now famous war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, played respectively by Stuart Bunce and James Wilby. Sassoon later wrote his wonderful autobiographical work "Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man", which covered his experiences of the trenches. In the film we see Jonathan Pryce in what I feel to have been his best role as Rivers. We see him build relationships with these soldiers through his methods of communication. They become true friends and he feels their loss keenly if any die when they return to the trenches. In Barkers series of books Rivers becomes one of the finest characters in modern literature and that is how the director Gillies MacKinnon portrays him.
In this film we do not see the action of such classic WW1 films as "All Quiet On the Western Front" and "Paths of Glory". This is a very subdued affair, but it is equally thought provoking. Anyone interested in counselling will find this film and the book it is based on fascinating. It is a film that deserves to be far better known. A frank and honest look at the side of war that was once convieniently ignored. Victims not as well known as Sassoon and Owen were also damaged as surely as any bullet to the brain. This film is a fine elegy to those thousands of forgotten men.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Despite promising material - the relationship between World War One poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon and the pioneering work of psychiatrist Dr W.H.R. Rivers in dealing with shell-shocked soldiers at Craiglockhart Hospital in Scotland - and Pat Barker's fine source novel, Regeneration/Behind the Lines is something of a disappointment. It's not so much that it's bad, though it does have many problems, more that it's not great when it could and should have been.
Gillies MacKinnon's direction is a big part of the problem, a victim of too much good taste and restraint and not terribly cinematic either, rarely venturing much beyond medium shots. The material needs attack and passion, but instead it feels like a well-staged piece that's too nervous about offending its potential audience's sensibilities to really go for the throat. The casting is problematic too: Jonathan Pryce is fine as the psychiatrist gradually assuming his patients maladies himself as he faces the irony of curing men so they can be sent back to possibly die at the front but Jonny Lee Miller remains unconvincing as the resentful working class officer Billy Prior, cutting far too contemporary a figure to convince in a period piece. However, the scenes between James Wilby and Stuart Bunce as Sassoon and Owen really take hold, and it's here that the film all too rarely finds its heart and soul. It's a film that stands up a lot better on a second viewing partially because of lower expectations, but it's much too polite to do its subject matter full justice. That the Dutch DVD is a slightly cut version does not help matters.
Gillies MacKinnon's direction is a big part of the problem, a victim of too much good taste and restraint and not terribly cinematic either, rarely venturing much beyond medium shots. The material needs attack and passion, but instead it feels like a well-staged piece that's too nervous about offending its potential audience's sensibilities to really go for the throat. The casting is problematic too: Jonathan Pryce is fine as the psychiatrist gradually assuming his patients maladies himself as he faces the irony of curing men so they can be sent back to possibly die at the front but Jonny Lee Miller remains unconvincing as the resentful working class officer Billy Prior, cutting far too contemporary a figure to convince in a period piece. However, the scenes between James Wilby and Stuart Bunce as Sassoon and Owen really take hold, and it's here that the film all too rarely finds its heart and soul. It's a film that stands up a lot better on a second viewing partially because of lower expectations, but it's much too polite to do its subject matter full justice. That the Dutch DVD is a slightly cut version does not help matters.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
What you would expect
The DVD came withing a couple of days which was great, as I am studying the novel at college. Came wrapped in cellophane and well packaged. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Teri
regeneration
great world war one film not a lot of action but if you are interested in the great war poets a film for you
Published 12 months ago by gerry
Deleted Scenes
Don't waste your money on this, some scenes have been deleted, buy the VHS tape instead, otherwise, it's an excellent film, very moving.
Published 18 months ago by R. STEWART
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
