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Show:		9.0
Picture:		10.0
Sound:		10.0
Extras:		7.0
Score:		7.0

Director(s):	Matthew Ginsburg • Frederic Lumiere
Writer(s):	Matthew Ginsburg, Bruce Kennedy, Ben Kaplan
Starring:	Amy Smart • Josh Lucas • Justin Bartha • Rob Corddry • Rob Lowe • Steve Zahn • Gary Sinise • Ron Livingston • LL Cool J
Genre:	Documentary • War
Release Date:	January 26, 2010

List Price:	DVD - $21.48
Amazon:

Each installment of WWII in HD opens with the following statement: “This Program Contains Rare Films of World War II Originally Shot In Color, Found During A Two-Year World-Wide Search. Much Of It Has Never Been Seen On Television Before. These Films Are Presented Now In High Definition.”

You wouldn’t think that would mean much after the overwhelming glut of World War II documentaries that we as a culture have been exposed to (how different can two shots of people firing mortar shells over a hill really look?), but, in this case, it really does. While there’s nothing especially new being said about the war here, this new footage (and, more importantly, the way it is contextualized) shows that there are always going to be new and freshly relatable ways to say them.

I know what you’re thinking, and I can assure you that I was wondering the same thing: just how much of this is stock footage (footage not specifically shot for this film)? The fact is, pretty much all of it, save for some modern day interviews with some of the twelve people whose journals are interpreted by actors for this piece. On paper, this sounds really boring, but it’s a great testimony to the talent of those involved that this film has the astonishing sense of cohesion that it does for its seven and a half hour length, let alone something that relies on found footage for its visuals. The interactive maps and audio recordings certainly help, keeping the wide scope of the storyline sharply in check as it progresses from the very early days of the war (when Americans clearly didn’t want to be involved) to the final showdown at Hiroshima. At the core here is a stronger understanding of the military and social progress of the war than we are accustomed to seeing on television or film. Even if you’re more than familiar with the way that the whole thing plays out (as I assume most of you are), campaigns and events are explained in such clear-minded detail that you can’t help but feel as if sixty years hindsight has given us new understanding of them (even if they really haven’t).

But the aspect that truly distinguishes this work is the inclusion of journal entries from twelve different first person sources (mostly soldiers, but also a journalist and a nurse), which are all vocally interpreted by actors, none of whose voices are distinct enough that you never forget who’s talking (Rob Lowe, LL Cool J, Amy Smart, and Justin Bartha are all represented here). The experiences shared are alternately joyous, funny, horrific, and infuriating, and cover a wide range of aspects of the war that are rarely seen together in the same documentary. Great moral triumphs (the liberation of the concentration camps) are framed against ethically heinous instances of group panic (the internment of Japanese-Americans), providing a portrait of an America at war that is made both brilliant and small by its single-minded pride and aggression, and with a rawer emotion than we’re using to seeing in portrayals of a war that has been largely relegated to dismally funereal works of somber reflection and almost painful reverence.

I’m finding it difficult to review this without lapsing into an avalanche of unhelpful critical clichés (I’ll spare you all the word ‘riveting’), but, at heart, they’re the only words sufficient to describe how impressed I was by this documentary, because it accomplished what I suspect most mainstream war films are really going for: making a vast, complex, and horrific situation at once interesting and personable, in a way that probably no work since Saving Private Ryan has. If you’re at all interested in the war, or even just television documentaries, I highly recommend picking this up and giving it the time it deserves.

DVD Bonus Features

The three disc set also contains two short features in which the process of discovering and restoring the footage is detailed. Kind of interesting, especially if you’re a nerd for those things. There's a short bit on the twelve people profiled, too.