Customer Reviews

Ghosts of the Baltic Sea

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'Ghosts of the Baltic' fell somewhat short of my expectations for this type of documentary. I gather this is due in part to having seen James Cameron's Expedition on the Bismarck documentary. Whilst the direction of 'Ghosts of the Baltic' is similar, it would have been nice for the factual account to have been aided with reenactments or CGI animations. Big budget or not, this certainly aids in the overall story telling of such documentaries (the Australian ABC recently released a 'Gallipoli Submarine' that also featured reenactment as a means of story telling). There was not alot of historical background information of the captains or the vessels/submarines etc with possible exception to the Gustloff. I felt the footage of the wrecks were not particularly engaging nor was there alot of them. Cross referencing footage of the wrecks with original photographs would have been nice. A more forensic look at the wrecks, their condition and the damage sustained would have been interesting. There is no mention of the 'supposed' post-war Russian cover-up regarding the damage to the Gustloff wreck for instance. The accounts of the survivors was interesting and heartbreaking - this I would say was the biggest asset of the documentary. The cover artwork also could have depicted a Russian 'Stalinets' submarine rather than a contempory Royal Navy submarine. Whilst the story is a tragic one, I felt this documentary could have offered more.

I rented this at Blockbuster and I thought this was a good show. There is not much video of the actual ships as there was in the Titanic show. But the history lesson is a good one and the personal recollections of the several survivors held one's interest and compassion. I was not aware that there were over 20,000 souls lost when these 3 ships were sunk in WWII.