Customer Reviews

Comrades (1987) (2 Disc Set) [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Comrades is probably my favourite English Language film of all time. I first saw it in the cinema and then again on Television. How great that it is now available in DVD format. I only feel sorry for the previous reviewer having failed to be able to watch it: sort out your equipment!
Comrades is very different to the Douglas trilogy but, in its own way is as fine. The contrasts between the two halves of the film, set in England and Australia, are superbly done. The muted light of Dorset contrasts with the harsh light of the Australian penal colony and the wide expanses of virgin land.
Linking the film together is the figure of the projectionist, who takes on different aspects of the history of the moving images. At times his exploits are anachronistic and at times whimsical but he provides a unifying thread.
The actors playing the parts of the Tolpuddle martyrs, trades-unionists who were prosecuted and exiled for the temerity of resisting a reduction of their pitifully small wages, are superb. The figure of George Loveless is one that stays in the mind long after the finer details have gone. He stands for the heroic nature of the exploited worker.

These 5 stars are somewhat imaginary since I cannot play this imported Blu-ray disc. But certainly I rate the Bill Douglas Trilogy a fiver. Fact is, the BR capability of my computer has never functioned, and my early-model BR DVD player lacks the later enabling codes. While Amazon's description says this movie will play on US machines, doesn't the PAL format introduce a glitch? Can somebody who has managed to watch this movie please enlighten me?